


The Shape I Found You In / Lay Me Down

by irisbleufic, moony



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Collaboration, Confessions, Epistolary, First Time, M/M, Murder, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-29
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:37:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/moony/pseuds/moony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock invades Sweden, John watches too much questionable television, both of them finally Discuss Things, and absence makes the heart grow odder.  Crime-solving tourism abounds. </p><p>
  <span class="small">[<b>irisbleufic</b> is responsible for having written Sherlock's sections (and also for Agna and Helle, if you'd like to know who to blame for that plot-thread), <b>moony</b> is responsible for having written John's sections, and the rest of it is entirely down to improvisation on both sides.  The stories' titles have been borrowed from song lyrics by Girlyman and The Frames respectively.]</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Shape I Found You In

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [The Shape I Found You In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5026897) by [sige_vic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sige_vic/pseuds/sige_vic)



> [Originally written and posted to LJ in October of 2010](http://irisbleufic.livejournal.com/243305.html) (original comment-threads viewable at the link). The version of this dualogy appearing on AO3 bears minor phrasing edits undertaken between 2014-2016; hopefully, it's more polished.

Plane delayed by 40 minutes. BORING. Can  
only deduce so many life stories before the  
duty-free shops begin to look appealing.

SH

*

Whoever invented Terminal 5 obviously  
did not foresee the difficulties inherent  
in painfully flawed design. Shops =  
decent. Have bought you a new wallet.

SH

*

And don't try to convince me nothing  
is wrong with your old one. There's no  
room in it anymore for my debit card.

SH

*

Your phone's battery can't be dead.  
I charged it for you before I left.

SH

*

Can you run me a web search on  
tolerable hotels in Stockholm?

SH

*

John?

*

Never mind; boarding.  
You owe me six texts.

No, seven.

SH

*

For god’s sake Sherlock I was at work  
Mobiles aren’t allowed in the surgery you know that  
Have you landed?  
j

*

Why is there a bin bag full of left shoes in the bathtub  
j

*

Oh fuck there are still feet in them  
I hate you  
j

*

Just in half of them, don't be ridiculous.  
Yes, I've landed. The weather here's nicer  
than in London. August's a good look  
on this country. Never come in winter;  
you'd freeze and try to steal my coat.

That's only three.

SH

*

Awaiting those Google results.  
Do not want to spend money on  
browser roaming, since you're  
always nagging me about it.

SH

*

Never mind.

SH

*

Concierge does not speak English.  
Since when do Swedes not speak  
English? Would ask you to pop it  
through Babelfish, but you're tetchy.

SH

*

Mycroft has left me instructions.  
Did not make reservations for  
a reason; git found me anyway.

Keep him busy while I'm gone?

SH

*

Forgot toothpaste.

SH

*

Listen, are you ignoring me on  
purpose, or is 'EastEnders' just  
that engrossing this evening?

SH

*

You do not want to know what  
the previous party to rent this  
room did on/to the mattress. 

SH

*

John. John John John.

*

Fine. Am going out in search  
of food, in hopes of delaying  
rendezvous with Mycroft's man.

SH

*

They'll serve anyone these days.  
Dinner with complete idiot.

SH

*

Would it be trite of me to say:  
WISH YOU WERE HERE?

SH

*

I turned off my mobile after the first five texts  
because occasionally I enjoy this thing called sleeping  
j

*

The feet smell  
and I can’t have a bath  
I don’t want to smell too  
J

*

How the hell do you expect me to keep Mycroft busy?  
Arrange a coup?  
J

*

You smell  
J

*

Sod this  
some of us don’t have unlimited texting  
Check your email you twit  
J

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: 164 characters = not enough to shout at you

I rang Molly Hooper from Bart’s and she’s coming to collect the feet. I promised her that you’d buy her a coffee if she did and you are going to buy her a coffee. You are going to have a proper conversation with her without insulting her in any way. There will be rehearsals.

I’m fairly certain they sell toothpaste in Sweden. The Swedish have very nice teeth.

I am not texting you anymore because if you’re going to say all that to me then you can sit down and write it all down in a proper e-mail like an adult. 

Got to go, taking Mrs Hudson out for Italian.

-j

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: If it's enough for me to talk to you, then it should be sufficient for shouting.

(This is one of your more childish stunts. As for the no browser roaming rule, that's just gone out the window, because I can't check my email unless I use my browser.)

Question: if you were a foreign dignitary's wife's necklace, where would you be?

I CANNOT BELIEVE MYCROFT SENT ME OUT HERE AFTER A PIECE OF STOLEN JEWELLERY. Well, not really, there's something else, too, something involving stolen access codes and dull information belonging to the Swedish government, but the bauble seems to be a bonus. Apparently Mycroft owes the Swedish ambassador to the UK a favour, and what does the bastard come up with? Clean up after my aides' incompetence, and find my wife's platinum-and-diamond...thing, I don't know, it's supposedly very rare and very expensive, a pink diamond from Australia. I, for one, had not known that Australia was a leading producer of coloured diamonds.

You are not to breathe a word of this to anybody, including the bit about Australia.

And as for taking Mrs. Hudson out for Italian—without me? You wouldn't dare.

 

SH

P.S. What I said is true, however trite. You'd at least see the humour in this situation.

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: The fettuccini was delicious.

We’ll just send your mobile bill to Mycroft since it’s his job that you’re doing over there. Really, is it such a big deal to do him the odd favour now and again. It’s only fair considering what he did for us you know. Or would you rather have been blown up? No, don’t answer that, you’re ridiculous enough to prefer death by explosion to owing your brother anything. Well, I’m not. I rather like being alive and having all my limbs intact. They’re very useful, limbs.

I am not a necklace but I am sitting on the sofa. Have you looked at their sofa? Under the cushions perhaps? You’re always losing your mobile down there. Stands to reason one might lose a necklace there too, pink diamonds or no. Start with the sofa, I think.

The feet and shoes are gone, though I don’t know if the bathtub survived. It’s currently filled with water and bleach but there’s still a very footy smell in there. Mrs Hudson’s putting it on our rent, of course. Meanwhile I’ve been making do with spongebaths in the kitchen. Have I mentioned yet that I hate you?

Anything else I ought to know about that you conveniently forgot to tell me?

Law and Order is on so I’m going to turn off the laptop now. It’s nice to be able to watch it without you shouting the ending five minutes in.

j

PS I wouldn’t have minded going along if I could have, but I couldn’t leave the surgery when flu is going round. Don’t suppose you’ll take photos for me. I’ve never been to Sweden or anywhere up there.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: You utter bastard. I'll bet it was.

These charges won't turn up till next month, so I'll claim the pleasure of sending the bill to him myself. With little smiley-faces all over, Xs for eyes. What do you think?

I'm going to tell you this once, and only once: it is not, as you put it, such a 'big deal' to owe Mycroft a favour. It is the end of the world as I know it. Subject closed.

For the record, I don't prefer death by explosion. I'm rather glad we're both alive, thank you, and yes, if you must know, I'm grudgingly grateful to my brother for being, how did you put it, 'bad-ass' enough to get us out. Of course, the annoying part is, although locked up indefinitely, that...that _insect_ is still alive. He deserves to die for what he did to you, thoroughly and horribly. If my saying so means Sally is right about me, then so be it. It's the only thing she'll ever be right about.

There is nothing in or under the sofa, at least not in the ambassador's office. I've decided it behooves me to treat the access codes and the necklace as one and the same, for now. Both are irritatingly small objects (when will people ever learn not to store sensitive information on memory sticks?), and both may well have been stolen by the same person. What were both doing in the ambassador's office, you ask? Well, let's just say some fun was had in which both objects were removed from their owners' persons and cast unceremoniously on the desk. I'm doubting it's the aides' incompetence so much as the ambassador's inability to keep on his trousers.

Mycroft can pay for the foot-damage, too, while he's taking care of my roaming charges. That was nearly the worst pun I've ever accidentally made in my life.

 _Law and Order_ is preferable to _EastEnders_ , however simple-minded in and of itself.

SH

P.S. Don't come down with flu. Or, if you do, get over it before I come home.

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: I found the chicken feet, why were they in the breadbox

The smiley faces would fit in with your emotional age, which is about five. All you’re missing is a temper tantrum complete with stomping feet and toddler’s fists.

I’m not very happy with the idea that he’s still alive either to be perfectly honest, because I know that if you were in prison it would not be long before you managed to sort out how to escape. So long as he’s alive there’s the distinct possibility (probability?) that he’ll get out. So frankly if that body we’re all standing over is him I won’t be too fussed, though I don’t think you’ll be the one to do it because I certainly didn’t appreciate being wrapped up in semtex and I’d like to show him just how much I didn’t appreciate it.

You should have run, you know. When I told you to.

What is it about very important people and shagging whatever doesn’t run away? Haven’t they got more important things to do? Other than their aides or other people’s wives? I trust you’re already looking at the cleaning service as possible suspects, though I suppose that’s too obvious and you’ve already dismissed it. So never mind. 

At least there are no bodies this time. That’s a bit refreshing for a change, isn’t it? Oh, sorry, remembered who I’m talking to.

No flu yet but I am rather knackered. Twelve hours of explaining to people that antibiotics won’t do a thing against something viral is very weary business. I was almost glad when a girl came in with glandular fever, at least that I can do something about. Poor thing though, miserable, looked a bit like one of those lizards with the thingy around its neck. 

Tonight I’m going down the pub with a fellow from the surgery. Arsenal at Newcastle, which I know means nothing to you but I think it ought to be an interesting evening. Sarah might join us. Just in case you reply and I don’t get straight back to you, you don’t send me a thousand texts wondering if I’ve fallen into the Thames (again). 

J

PS: Bring me a jar of lingonberry jam if you would. I very much like jam.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Because the bathtub was occupied, as you've so helpfully pointed out.

Come now, my tantrums are classier than that. When was the last time you saw a tantrum that included ill-played Vivaldi, bullets in the wall, or battery acid?

(Yes, John: I have enough self-awareness to know when I deserve to be mocked.)

I'm reassured that you'd be just as eager to put him down, because I'd enjoy the look of surprise on his sorry excuse for a face even more if you were the source of that bullet. What you do with guns (good), it just shouldn't be allowed. Actually, it isn't allowed, but I think that both the Yard and Mycroft are looking the other way. We'd have both been in prison half a dozen times by now.

The ambassador only appears to be shagging his wife. In the office. A lot.

Regarding the absence of a body, that's not entirely true. As of this morning, one of the aides has gone missing, so there may well be a body to deal with soon. Much though it will disappoint you to hear this, I don't take pleasure in the thought of the girl dying. But, once she's dead, if she dies, I'll be more than happy to see what I can learn from her. There's a difference.

The word you are looking for is 'frill', however useful you may deem 'thingy'.

Sarah, oh? I'd expected she'd be thoroughly put off by now, what with the kidnapping by Chinese thugs and then you standing her up in favour of some pyrotechnics.

SH

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: THINGY THINGY THINGY THINGY

Oh yes the battery acid. The carpeting may never recover. And the floor. That was a rather spectacular evening. I think of it whenever I see the curry stains on the ceiling.

There is never a time that you do not deserve to be mocked.

You’ve said nothing about Stockholm. Are you seeing any of it at all outside of the ambassador’s office and wherever you’re staying (where ARE you staying)? It’d be a shame for you to go and not see the sights a bit. (No, you’re not forgiven for going to Tenerife and not sending me a postcard.) You ought to take a boat tour.

I would rather not have to use or carry my gun but I won’t lie, I feel better when I have it, particularly when we’re out looking for someone who will most likely require me to at least wave it around a bit. You know I still regret not just shooting the Golem when I had the chance. I could have done but I was a bit wary of hitting you so I didn’t, and in hindsight I ought to have just done it. I wouldn’t have shot you. Don’t like the idea that a dirty great mutant is still out there somewhere doing what he does best.

I hope you find the poor girl before anything happens. What are the circumstances of her going missing?

Yes, Sarah was there tonight for the match (Newcastle won and after several pints I’m feeling no pain, thank god for spellcheck). I still rather fancy her but suffice it to say there’s really no chance of anything for the reasons you so helpfully pointed out. She’s not cross about my not showing up that night, mostly because I couldn’t really help being hit over the head and pulled into a car (never thought I’d say this but I prefer your brother’s method of kidnapping), but I think it was the last straw. Still she’s great fun and if nothing else I’ve got someone sane to hang round when you go off the rails.

Still wouldn’t have minded at least getting a shag out of it before she chucked me.

J

PS Mrs Hudson would also like jam.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Two orders of lingonberry jam, noted. Tiny little jars for tiny little brains.

(Clarify with Mrs. Hudson whether or not it's actually cloudberry she's after.)

Central Hotel, Vasagatan 38, 111 20 Stockholm (the address, in case you hadn't worked that out). As it turns out, the concierge does speak English; I had merely been curt enough to merit the cold shoulder. Nothing new under the sun. Speaking of which, the harbour-front here is blindingly beautiful at midday, and the sky never seems to be anything at this time of year but flawless blue. You'd appreciate the boats, I think. All shapes and sizes, some of them of military make. A cruise around the islands is reputed to be an excellent venture, yes, but I hardly see the point in tourist activities if you're not here to endure my commentary. And I also forgot to pack the skull.

Dinner my first night in town was at Nalen. You won't have heard of it, dreadfully expensive, but my God do they grill up some exceptional reindeer steak. You might like the local fruit ciders. I could bring some back, I suppose, but if it explodes in my luggage, I'll be quite cross, and you'll be paying for some new luggage.

The girl—her name is Agna—was last seen approximately forty-eight hours ago. A CCTV camera caught her on her walk home from work. They haven't got nearly as much public surveillance here as we have. I plan on making a house-call. The flatmate, Helle, is particularly distraught, they tell me. I'd like to speak with her.

Ah. I hadn't realised you'd made it official. The being 'chucked', I mean. I suppose I ought to say I'm sorry, but then again, I'm not, and I'm far past the point of lying to you (never again if I can help it; I still regret that evening, and I'll have you know regret is not an emotion with which I'm particularly well acquainted). What I will say, then, is that having a friend who shares your affinity for _EastEnders_ and your appalling taste in beer can be no bad thing. Congratulations.

SH

P.S. What kind of postcard did you have in mind?

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: I call the skull Gary

The skull is fine where he is, I don’t think he would travel well. We’re very happy. Just last night we had a nice curry and watched Master Chef and discussed gay marriage (not sure why it came up; can never tell with him). I’ll thank you not to take away my preferred conversation partner. At least he doesn’t interrupt to call me an idiot and fling crumbs at me.

A proper hotel? I was certain you’d stay at the place that used to be a prison. I looked it up on the internet. Seems your sort of thing(y). Also you’re very cruel telling me about how lovely it is. It’s been raining here since you left. Beginning to feel like a fish or some sort of tropical reptile. (This does not give you carte blanche to dissect me when you get back.)

Did you really eat a reindeer?

Doesn’t bode well for Agna does it? Vanishing off the streets is never a good sign. I remember reading it’s the first 12 hours that are the most important? So if it’s been 48 hours then she’s probably not doing very well at all. Try not to be horrid to the flatmate. You ought to know how she must feel. I certainly do.

I’m not really that distraught over the whole business with Sarah to be perfectly honest. I don’t know whether I can truly balance work, a girlfriend, minding you and crimefighting. Seems a bit much to take on, really. So perhaps it’s for the best.

She thinks you’re completely mad, of course. I haven’t the heart to correct her. Also, she’s right.

Send me a postcard with a reindeer on.

J

PS: You were right, she likes cloudberry.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Of course I was right.

Not the best of subject lines for the news I'm bearing: Agna is dead. As it turns out, the flatmate is not just her flatmate, but also her partner. I'm almost relieved I had words with her before the body was found, although now there are parts of the conversation that won't leave me for a while. I hope you'll forgive me for the lack of detail; suffice it to say that both objects in this case seem to have been stolen by the killer. The ambassador's wife's pendant was left around Agna's neck. They found her in the water, just off one of the islands, so I did get to go on that cruise after all.

I don't know what this has to do with what we were discussing before—reindeer and cloudberries and all—but I wanted to keep the pendant. Spirit it away, keep it secret, let it remain forever lost to the ambassador and his wife. They can replace it. Easily. They have thirty thousand pounds to spare in spades, most likely. Helle, on the other hand, has nothing. She can't afford her flat now, and she's lost the love of her life. I don't profess to know a great deal about such things, but I understand what a difference such a valuable item might have made to this young woman. It wouldn't have replaced Agna, but it would've taken care of material difficulties.

Or it might have served as a keepsake, a _memento mori_. Agna has very likely left her little. Her post in the ambassador's office paid a living wage, but not enough to support two people in a city like this one. Helle has a job; she works herself to the bone, and I won't rattle off the inventory of how and why I know. You would have known, too, had you seen her. You would have...

Well, you would have done better than I did. 

And I understand now why you took employment.

SH

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: Re: Of course I was right.

Are you all right? This isn’t your usual murder talk. You’re normally a bit less maudlin and a lot more gleeful at the mystery of it. What’s going on?

Those poor girls. What the hell did she get tangled up in to end up like this, I don’t understand it. I’ll never understand this, no matter how much we see it. Whatever happened, a necklace, national secrets, bloody Chinese hairpins for Christ’s sake, they’re not worth a life. Whoever this bastard is, he’s killed two girls not just one. For Helle it might even be worse than death to be honest. At least if you’re dead you don’t have to go on without that other half of yourself. There’s not much joy in living if you’re the one left behind.

Does Helle have any family who could look after her? Did Agna’s body tell you anything to help you to find her killer?

That is not how I thought you would see the waters of Stockholm you know.

I’m sorry.

J

PS: I tried ringing your mobile but it rang out. Let me know that you’re all right.

*

Of course I'm all right. Don't be absurd.

Thinking.

SH

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Re: Re: Of course I was right.

The thief-and-murderer's intention is to cast the ambassador's reputation into question. By leaving the wife's necklace around the aide's neck—well, I hardly need point out the implications. Not so clever, though, this one; they didn't do their homework on the target (married and faithful) or on the pawn (in a committed relationship). The public-shaming tactic would have worked much better in America.

Of those forty-eight hours, Agna's body had been in the water for for just over twenty-four. Almost anything of particular use had been washed away; although, based on some errata, I expect that the toxicology reports will be nothing short of forthcoming. There were no signs of trauma or struggle. This nearly always points to an inside job; the killer was probably someone she knew and trusted.

Humans readily commit unspeakable acts for the sake of entities that cannot love them back—whether it's diamonds, jade, or information. However, the culprit wasn't after the information because he or she loved it. The ambassador must have enemies, and once I have a list of who those people are, I this will prove perfectly simple. The motive is either vengeance or spite. Boring.

Have I really only been gone for a week? Feels like a month.

SH

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Of course I was right.

It’s not absurd to be concerned when you sound like an alien.

I think putting the necklace around Agna’s neck is terribly obvious really. Of course I know you think this already but honestly, that’s laying it on a bit thick. Clearly a message and a very clumsy one at that, might as well have put a sign around her neck saying YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO THINK THE AMBASSADOR IS SHAGGING HER. So if me with my tiny brain can see that then I imagine the Stockholm police will as well?

Who else did she know besides the ambassador and Helle? 

I wouldn’t call this boring Sherlock. A girl is dead because of this. For Helle’s sake, it ought not be boring to you to figure out who it was and get Agna some justice. If something happened to someone you cared about, as unlikely as that is, you wouldn’t find it at all boring to sort out the culprit and hold them responsible. So no, not boring.

Yes, you’ve been gone a week. In that time I’ve tidied the flat, held an hourlong conversation with a skull, taken Mrs Hudson to dinner (and the waiter assumed it was a date, I think I need to get more bloody sleep), disposed of the turtle carcass you had in the vegetable drawer in the fridge because it was beginning to make everything smell of turtle, arranged your LPs alphabetically, got the shopping, hoovered your bedroom (you have an awful lot of books about bees, why), got a haircut, and caught up on Eastenders (not one bloody word). If anyone’s bored it’s quite obviously me. I’m sitting here writing you an email and playing Bejeweled because there’s nothing else on.

Solve this quickly would you? Never thought I’d say this but the flat’s a bit too quiet.

J

PS: Mycroft just called by to see how you were getting on. I take it you’re ignoring him? I didn’t tell him anything but I imagine he already knows everything right down to the colour pants I’m wearing right now. Why is your family the thing of nightmares?

*

No time now; developments!  
What on earth is 'Bejeweled'?

Should be 'jewelled'.

SH

*

Nonsense, the flat can't be too quiet.  
There are the boards that creak at  
8:30 AM, again around 2 PM, and  
sporadically throughout the early  
hours of morning. Nuisances, all.

SH

*

Notable absence of vitriol amongst  
staff. They claim innocence. Hm.

SH

*

Bees are admirable creatures.

SH

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: This subject line requires a change of scenery.

Tell Mycroft that he can stuff it. Or tell him what you know. I'll make a concession on his behalf in the you-are-not-to-breathe-a-word-of-this-to-anyone clause, but if you tell him about Australia, I will personally see to it that your blog gets hacked.

I'm beginning to think now that vengeance and spite really have nothing to do with the culprit's motive, so, you're right, considerably not-boring. By 'developments', I meant that the toxicology report had come back: Agna was poisoned. The food in her stomach suggests a high-class meal, so she dined out with someone prior to meeting her end. The poison was undoubtedly slipped to her during dinner at some point. High level of trust; Agna felt comfortable in her surroundings. Now begins a sweep of all area restaurants serving a certain combination of foods on one plate.

None of the staff interviewed are lying, I fear. I say 'I fear' because that means that this case is in no way as done and dusted as I had assumed it would be once that task was completed. There's something slightly unusual going on here, and it may have more to do with Agna than I had initially assumed. Much though I would rather not do this, a second visit to Helle will be the best course.

Why would you kill a young woman you knew well, and then steal some access codes?

This hotel room could use a bit of your domestic touch. It's...chaotic.

SH

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: 

poisoned bloody hell

first of all those floorboards creak because i walk on them when i leave for the surgery and 2 is when mrs hudson comes to make sure you arent dead. you dont know that do you. youre not supposed to be cause i asked mrs hudson to do it when i know you won’t be paying attention to anything but whatever it is youre working on

i cant stop thinking about agna and helle and agna being posioned because i know what its like to have someone there one day and gone the next. friend of mine in my regiment was fine one morning and having a laugh and then he was shot in the head that afternoon. i watched him go off in the jeep and when he came back it was just a body. that’s what helle feels like now she saw agna leave in the morning and now she’s a corpse and she wont ever talk to her again. its a wretched feeling cant stop thinkgin about it because i thought i would never sleep again after layton died and he was just a mate. if it were someone i cared about like helle did agna

might have had a few down the pub before writing this so excuse the shit typing

we never talk about it why is that. you bloody went off to meet him alone and you probably wouldnt have come back from it

did you intend to come back

i really want to know what i would have come home to had things gone different

j

ps i am going to hate myself in the morning after i send this

*

John, why aren't you answering your phone?

Don't hate yourself.

SH

*

Pick up, goddamn it.

SH

*

JOHN.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Re: 

I intended to come back. I always intend to come back, don't you realize that? Maybe before you came along I wouldn't have cared enough, but, all right, fair dues, I was bloody stupid to have done that, and if I'd only known it was going to hurt you that much, I'd have thought twice. And, yes, there's the incident with the cabbie, too, please don't remind me. I'd only just met you, yet you risked your own life happily enough in order to save mine, and there I was playing with fire.

You're still not answering your phone. I had to find a sodding internet cafe so I can keep on dialling now and again, goddamn it, your battery had better be dead. And if you have nothing better to do than drink in my absence, then I might ask you a few of the same questions, namely, do you fancy dying of alcohol poisoning? You're a doctor, so I'm sure you know what to do at this point in order to sort yourself out, but just for a minute pretend I'm your doctor and PUT DOWN THE PINT.

I'm having visions of Mrs. Hudson packing ice on your head and covering you in blankets and telling you what an idiot you've been. These visions may not be true, but I'll pretend they are. No, wait, strike that, she'd better be doing it, because if she weren't, I'd be doing it. It's come to this.

We don't talk about it because we're both incontrovertibly stupid; hadn't you guessed?

More the fool, me, that I hadn't. John, please.

(I'm missing something, something that should be blindingly obvious, but I can't think. The patches aren't helping, the cigarettes aren't helping, _nothing_ is helping.)

FOR FUCK'S SAKE, ANSWER.

SH

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: Re: Re: 

Turned off my mobile the first time it rang because it felt like it was inside my head. don’t worry, I’m not planning to drink like that again for some time if ever. I finally stopped being sick an hour ago and Mrs Hudson’s just brought me tea and my laptop so here I am. Room’s still a bit spinny but the tea’s staying down at least. 

Read over the email I sent and I barely remember typing it but here’s the thing: I meant everything I said. 

I realised I never told you what happened when I woke up in the car. He was sitting across from me and talking about how I was going to be the best surprise, and he thanked me for giving him the opportunity to 'destroy you'. I’d no idea what he meant because how would someone like me let him get the better of you? Then I saw your face when I walked out.

I think it’s time to talk about it, Sherlock. 

You can’t do that again, do you understand? You might intend to always come back but the fact is that you can’t be certain you always will. Because you’re an arrogant twat you walked into a building with a madman (even madder than you, didn’t think it possible but there we are) and full of bloody snipers. Did it never occur to you that going alone to meet a man who happily blows people up and arranges murders might not have the outcome you expect it to? That you’re not always right (one word Sherlock: Harriet).

Then I’d have come back to an empty flat and no idea that you would never be there again. Did you talk to Helle? Ask her how that feels.

You don’t go where I can’t follow you. Full stop.

J

PS: Mrs Hudson had to make me tea in her kettle because ours is full of green slime. For some reason this doesn’t upset me but rather I would like to know when you are coming home.

PPS: Stop smoking. 

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: Is that a challenge?

Glad you're on the mend. I've texted Mrs. Hudson to inform her that if you get it into your head to go to the pub, any pub, she is to accompany you. If somebody else thinks it's a date, you'll just have to endure it. Besides, you've had plenty of practice by now. This wouldn't be a good point at which to admit, perhaps, that I'm somewhat jealous of my landlady? Dining alone is wretched. This is supposedly an Italian restaurant, but I remain unconvinced. Should've gone with the Thai place.

Well, I meant everything I said, too, for what it's worth. You've made your point, and no, I'm not always right. As long as it's just the two of us, I can admit that. However tempted you may be, please don't forward this to Lestrade. In fact, I will say something rather embarrassing just to make sure that you don't: I threw away what was left of the cigarettes because you seemed upset about them. The things you drive me to, John. I can't concentrate, because every time I hear footsteps in the hall, I wish they were yours. Actually, this has gone far beyond embarrassing; it's pathetic.

(I don't mean to say that you're pathetic, I mean to say—well, what I mean to say.)

No, I haven't had the chance to speak to Helle. It'll have to wait till Monday, I'm told, because she's away at the funeral. It's being held out on one of the islands, a different one from where they found her, because her family have a holiday cottage out there. I was invited, but respectfully declined. Helle seemed disappointed. Bit not good?

Please don't think that any of this is intended flippantly. I've found this a difficult piece of correspondence, even more so than some messages previous. I've hurt you time and again, but, somehow, miraculously, you seem to have no desire to walk away. 

I'm not used to this.

(Right. What I mean to say is, I think, that I couldn't walk away from you if I tried. Not ever again, I mean. Look, I know I've done it, but let's just put that behind us, all right? I'm back in the head-space where I'd like to rip out his fingernails for what he did to you, and the waitstaff look worried. Am I frightening?)

SH

*

no one’s ever said nice things like that to me

*

went for a walk

*

have you ever actually been to the british museum?  
we ought to go when you get back  
you can tell me all the ways in which history  
got it wrong.

*

i waited until i knew you’d be asleep  
before texting you

*

i think i’ve figured out  
why i wasn’t fussed when things didn’t  
work out with sarah

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: I am completely sober just so you know

I thought for a very long time that the worst day of my life was when I woke up in hospital and was told I’d never be a surgeon again because of my hand. No one wants a mad doctor operating on them you see. I remember wishing I’d died when I got shot, it was that bloody devastating. 

But now I know it wasn’t nearly so devastating as when I saw that sniper’s mark on your head.

You’ve been gone a week and three days and if this is what life is like without you around then it’s no kind of life I would ever want to live. I might complain about fish heads in the toaster and whatever you did to the radio so that it only gets Welsh language stations but if I didn’t have those things to complain about, I’d have nothing at all.

I think I need you like breathing.

Going to send this before I lose my nerve. 

J

*

Really? No one, ever? Well,  
then they're all bastards, and  
I'll rip their fingernails out, too.

*

A walk? Lovely coincidence,  
I'm on my way to Helle's now.  
The harbour-front is quiet.

*

Yes, I've been there, but not for  
a very long time. History got it  
wrong in lots of ways, I fear.

*

Fortunately for you, I was actually  
asleep. What would you have done  
if I'd responded right away?

*

...that's good. Very good,  
I think. Listen, I'm on Helle's  
doorstep, I'll check my email  
after I've spoken with her.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: ...and I'm almost always sober, so we're sorted.

I would start by saying that what Helle said is irrelevant, as what you've said is the only relevant thing in the world right now, as far as I'm concerned, but would be an insult to Helle. As it turns out, I'd been asking her all the wrong questions on our first meeting: Did Agna have any enemies at work? If not enemies, anyone she disliked intensely? Did she ever feel threatened by her employer? Was she privy to any information of a higher class than those access codes?

The questions I should have been asking were: Did Agna have any _friends_ at work? If not friends, anyone with whom she was cordial? Was she close to anyone else?

An employee, as such, did not commit this crime. There's one more person with whom I ought to speak, and it's someone with whom I should have been speaking all along. Unforgivable, that I was inclined to dismiss said party, given their role.

I'm certain you'll have caught up with me by now, but, if not—there's the fact that I could be wrong. Must investigate further, i.e. speak to the suspect.

(Won't go alone. My dinner invitation includes a third party. Nalen again.)

SH

*

I lost my nerve.

But I've found it.

*

I'll never put fish-heads in  
the toaster again. I'll get  
the radio fixed. Or I'll buy  
you a new one from Ikea.

*

I'm trying.

Nerve. Right.

*

I need you beside me.

*

Is there a way to save a text  
because I want to keep that one  
for a long time

*

From: John H Watson  
To: Sherlock Holmes  
Subject: the fish heads are fine where they are

Was it the ambassador’s wife? She’s the only one I can think of that you haven’t talked to, since you hadn’t mentioned her since the beginning. Why would she do it? Or am I completely off the mark, which is probable. If I were there I’d probably be able to see what you see, eventually, but from here I have to admit I’ve no idea what you’re on about.

But I hope you’ve found the right person, and that you make them suffer a bit before you hand them over to the authorities.

So we have established that we’re extraordinarily codependent which is not really too much of a shock. The thing that I would like to know is, when you get home, would you mind terribly if we have a roast for dinner (without carrots because I know you loathe them, and extra potatoes) and watch a film (I’ve got a Swedish one in mind, it’s about a little girl who’s a vampire, it’s disturbing enough that you might actually enjoy it) and if it’s all right with you, afterward I’d like to take you to bed.

Let me know if this is a problem. I certainly hope it isn’t. I hope to God I’ve read this right.

If not, please disregard and keep mocking to a minimum.

J

*

You've read everything right. It was,  
indeed, the ambassador's wife. A  
woman scorned. She'd fancied the  
girl for a long time, befriended her  
in a motherly sort of way, given her  
gifts, taken her out for coffee.

*

And dinner, unfortunately, when it  
became clear she stood no chance.

The memory stick was hidden in  
the lining of her handbag all along.

*

As for making her suffer, I wish  
you could have seen the look on her  
face when I told her what's going  
to become of her necklace. She'll  
have no use for it in prison, after all.

*

First things first: I have no intention  
of mocking you. I like roasts, and  
extra potatoes sound just perfect.

*

Second: I've been meaning to see  
'Let the Right One In' ever since  
Molly recommended it. Don't laugh.

*

And third: check your email, you twit.

*

From: Sherlock Holmes  
To: John H Watson  
Subject: FWD: Expedia.co.uk: Your Travel Itinerary  
Attachment: WatsonStockholm23Aug2010.pdf

The trouble is, I'm not quite ready to come home.

Speaking of bed, the one in my hotel room is overlarge and cold. I can't tell you how many times I'd come close to saying that, but didn't. I have no problems with any of what you've suggested as long as _you_ have no problems with the fact that, by the time you take me to bed post- _Let the Right One In_ , it will not have been the first time.

The harbour-front is quiet because you're not here. Helle would like to meet you.

(I'll send Mycroft a thank-you postcard. With a reindeer on.)

Yours,  
Sherlock

*

And here's where the real fun begins.

*

Couldn't sleep last night for thinking of you.

My pulse didn't slow for an hour afterward.

*

It wasn't enough, though.

*

Wanking, I mean. It's not your  
voice in my ear or your body  
against mine or your hands on  
me or anything even close.

*

You'd better get to sleep,  
or you'll miss your flight.

*

Or you could ring me,  
because you owe me  
about ten phone-calls.

*

But one would suffice.

*

christ Sherlock  
I guess I ought to know better  
than to check my texts at work

*

i thought of you as well last night

*

and just now in the bath

*

have told mrs hudson i’d be off for a few days.  
she said to give you her best.

*

i want to know what it feels like  
to be inside you.

*

downloaded a swedish dictionary to my  
phone just in case.  
don’t know any so i thought i’d  
have it ready in case i need to say anything  
important.

*

boarding  
see you soon

*

jag älskar dig


	2. Lay Me Down

**_It wasn't enough, though_**  
  
In Sherlock's world, waiting is something that happens to other people.  
  
Nonetheless, as he sits in an uncomfortable chair in Arlanda's Terminal 5 ( _Same dismal number on both ends_ , he thinks, _surely that's overkill_ ) and watches a small, extremely red-headed child attempt to coax a spider into his empty soda bottle, he can't help but find himself momentarily entertained. First of all, he'd been that child once upon a time; second of all, the spider isn't poisonous, but the boy has no way of knowing.  
  
Thirdly, John hates spiders with a vengeance.  
  
He lets his mind wander from the child ( _spider: caught_ ) to his mobile's browser window ( _response to Lestrade's latest email: elusive_ ) back to John ( _when terrified by arachnids: stupidly endearing_ ). The desert's full of large, unpleasant crawling things ( _e.g. Iraq: camel spiders_ ), so it stands to reason that John would dislike even the less-sizeable, polite English variants. And probably the Swedish ones, too. Sherlock frowns as the child chatters to his mother, who is just as red-headed, heavily pregnant, and looks as if she hasn't slept in at least twenty-four hours ( _her husband's flight home from India: badly delayed_ ). Neither does she look particularly thrilled at her son's new captive. She scolds him sharply, at which point the boy shrinks back, bumps into Sherlock's knee, and turns to eye Sherlock with wary curiosity.  
  
“ _Hur står det till_?” he asks, curiously direct for his age ( _four and half if he's a day_ ).  
  
“I'm fine,” Sherlock replies, flipping quickly through his browsing history. “ _Jag mår bra, tack,_ ” he repeats, fairly sure he's got the pronunciation down after hearing the phrase _ad infinitum_.  
  
The boy grins, suddenly shy, and holds up the bottle, tapping it to make the spider stir.  
  
“ _Väldigt bra_ ,” Sherlock tells him. _Very good_. “But you should release it.”  
  
“I couldn't agree with you more,” says the boy's mother, and relays the phrase in Swedish.  
  
Pouting, the boy tips the bottle carefully upside-down. The spider falls unceremoniously to the floor, unhurt, and scuttles away. He hides behind his mother's handbag, and Sherlock resumes his web-surfing ( _London weather that morning, present North Sea conditions, British Airways arrivals_ ).  
  
John's plane is twenty minutes late.  
  
Inexplicably, Sherlock is tempted to lure the boy out of sulking with his pocket magnifier, but immediately thinks better of it. He hasn't got the spider to peer at anymore, and also, children's hands are invariably sticky, and Sherlock doesn't fancy the thought of cleaning off the lens.  
  
Just then, there's an announcement in Swedish, followed by the same thing in English, but Sherlock had got it the first time. John's plane has just landed, which means he's got at least fifteen to twenty _more_ minutes of waiting ahead of him. Sherlock contemplates purchasing some cigarettes and killing some time outside, but thinks better of it. John will smell it on him, John will—  
  
_Taste it?_  
  
Sherlock quickly pushes the thought aside, much though it's shockingly pleasant. John would not appreciate being kissed for the first time in a moderately busy airport terminal, much less in front of a blindingly ginger urchin and his exhausted mother.  
  
He'd forgot about baggage reclaim. Add another ten minutes.  
  
People are already trickling through the barrier: one at a time, in twos and threes. Sherlock knows within seconds who is bound for joy and who is bound for heartache; who has someone waiting, and who must endure the lonely bus, train, or cab ride back to the city. The young boy's mother is perched on the edge of her seat, anxious, looking as if she might tip backwards at any moment.  
  
Five minutes later, the boy's father ( _dark-haired: curious_ ) is met mid-stride by his son coming out of the barrier, and his wife rises unsteadily to her feet, tired, but happy. Sherlock turns his face away from the inevitable chatter, the reunion, the embrace. The boy is babbling faster than Sherlock's lately-acclimatised brain can keep up, which makes Sherlock irritable.  
  
Unexpectedly, there's a hand on his arm. The boy's mother, smiling at him.  
  
“Thank you for keeping Stellan occupied,” she said, and they were off, Stellan himself waving at Sherlock over his father's luggage-laden shoulder.  
  
_From Consulting Detective to child-minder. Oh, how the mighty have fallen_.  
  
“I hate to interrupt your internal monologue,” says another voice, familiar and unaccented, directly in front of him, “but I kind of resent being upstaged by a five year-old.”  
  
“Four and a half,” Sherlock says reflexively, rising, reaching for John before he can stop himself.  
  
It's not quite a hug. Disappointing, in fact: John's carry-on is ridiculously large and slung over his shoulder and, oh, of _course_ he'd be carrying his military rucksack. But his grasp lingers on Sherlock's forearms for longer than necessary, and when they finally separate and look at each other, _really_ look at each other, Sherlock can't stop grinning. It _hurts_.  
  
“Of course you didn't check it,” he says. “Foolish of me to think—no, you wouldn't.”  
  
John looks tired, although not as tired as Stellan's mother. His clothes are a bit rumpled and his hair's grown too long, but otherwise, he looks fine. _Better_ than fine. Glorious.  
  
John inclines his head slightly and says, “Much though I'm enjoying being stared at, I've read online that there's a bus service somewhere around here that'll take us into the city for about three times less than the cost of a cab. How's that?”  
  
“Don't be ridiculous,” Sherlock says, tugging at the strap of John's bag. “The cabs work fine. That's how I got here. Give me your bag. It's only thirty-seven pounds if you do the exchange—”  
  
“Spend eighty quid on cab rides?” John asks, relinquishing his burden. “All in one day?”  
  
“We've done worse,” says Sherlock, still grinning as he leads John towards the exit.  
  
Their ride to the city is all nervous, non-stop conversation, as if they'd somehow failed to properly cover everything that had happened on either side in Sherlock's absence. In _John's_ absence. They're repeating themselves, skating ever nearer to the thin ice that's been broken for nearly forty-eight hours now, and, under any other circumstances, Sherlock would find himself frustrated.  
  
“How was your flight?” Sherlock asks, abruptly changing the subject ( _flush high on John's cheekbones, slight lack of focus to the eyes: he's had a few drinks en route_ ).  
  
“Dull,” John admits. “The magazines were all a month out of date, so I had some red wine and flipped on the telly. If you think _EastEnders_ is bad, you ought to try watching Swedish sitcoms.”  
  
“Already have,” Sherlock says, glancing out the window, catching his thumbnail briefly between his teeth. He'd like nothing more than to see if John would object to being kissed in the back seat of a cab, but then, he supposes that cabs, like spiders, might well have bad connotations.  
  
“And?” asks John, expectantly. His touch to the back of Sherlock's hand is electric, even if Sherlock knows that's a patently stupid comparison and horribly clichéd.  
  
“Couldn't tell you,” Sherlock replies, turning to face him. “Lost the plot. I was watching my first night in, at the hotel, to get my ear around the language a bit better, but it was useless. The adverts were bizarre and distracting, but one of them _did_ remind me to go fetch toothpaste.”  
  
John cracks a smile, _that_ smile, which prompts Sherlock to scowl at him on principle.  
  
“I can't imagine you fetching anything useful,” he says wryly.  
  
_I bought condoms last night_ , is what he wants to say, but instead, he turns back to the window and remarks, “I haven't bought the jam yet. You'll have to help me find it.”  
  
John is giving him a look that's slightly heartbreaking, and he finally (finally, _finally_ ) curls his hand fully around Sherlock's and laces their fingers together.  
  
“That was good, by the way.”  
  
Sherlock blinks, mesmerised by their joined hands. “What was?”  
  
“The plane ticket,” John says. “Didn't see that one coming.”  
  
_You wouldn't_ , Sherlock thinks. _Which is just one of many reasons you're here_.  
  
“Penny for your thoughts?”  
  
Sherlock can't suppress a laugh.  
  
“That's not nearly enough. Make me a better offer.”  
  
John considers this for a few seconds, and then leans in close.  
  
“Let me pay for the cab, and I'll kiss you.”  
  
Sherlock snorts, but his gut's suddenly a tangled knot of _want_.  
  
“You'll do that anyway.”  
  
“Yeah,” says John, patiently, “but I meant _now_ , as opposed to making you wait.”  
  
“Done,” replies Sherlock, closing the space between them in order to reach around and fetch John's wallet from his back pocket ( _Poor excuse for a grope_ , Sherlock tells himself, _and you know it_ ).  
  
It's an awkward, foolish gesture that earns Sherlock a startled burst of laughter, followed by John's right hand pressed to his cheek and their mouths knocking clumsily together as the cab lurches to a halt. Sherlock manages to work John's wallet free at about the same time that John manages to kiss him properly, his palm cupping Sherlock's jaw as if it were made to the purpose.  
  
Maybe they're moving again, or maybe everything really _is_ spinning.  
  
The driver is tapping on the Plexiglas partition.  
  
“Is this where you want to be left off?” he asks. “Ah, guys?”  
  
Sherlock tears himself away, furious, while John stares out the window with one hand over his mouth and the most unbelievable grin plastered on his face.  
  
“Yes, thank you, this will do,” he snaps. “Close enough!” He fumbles in John's wallet, finds a ridiculous amount of Swedish money, and hands the driver what he _hopes_ is four one-hundred kroner notes. Satisfied, the driver pulls up the kerb and slams on the brakes.  
  
“Take it easy,” he jokes. “Welcome to Stockholm.”  
  
“Thanks,” says John, a little breathlessly, but Sherlock has already opened the door and taken up his rucksack and is pulling him out of the cab as quickly as possible.  
  
Reception doesn't seem to notice—or, indeed, care—that Sherlock is all but dragging a complete stranger after him towards the lift. They come to an impatient halt before the metal doors and it's John, not Sherlock, who punches the up-arrow button and mutters, “Come on, come _on_ ,” under his breath. The doors open three seconds later and Sherlock lurches inside with John in tow, and again it's the lurch of motion that pitches them together, pitch- _perfect_.  
  
“Oh, God, this is not what I was imagining,” John breathes between kisses.  
  
“Are you disappointed?” Sherlock asks, sagging heavily back against the railing as they rumble to a halt. “Third floor, this is us.”  
  
“You really are an idiot,” John says, taking his turn to drag Sherlock. “Which way?”  
  
“Left,” responds Sherlock, attempting to catch his breath. “No, right. _Sorry_. Right.”  
  
Five attempts later, Sherlock is still trying to get his key-card to make the little blinking red light on the door handle go green. He lets out a huff of frustration, at which point John eases the key out of his hand, unbelievably patient, and slides it in and out once. The light goes green.  
  
“I hate you,” mutters Sherlock, halfheartedly, wrenching the doorknob and pushing inward with all his weight. John follows close behind him, one hand pressed to the middle of Sherlock's back. The touch sears through his jacket and shirt, makes him even more impatient.  
  
“Shoes,” John says, already at the laces of his own, practically tripping out of them.  
  
“Please don't tell me you're still sore about that.” Sherlock's out of both his own before John has kicked free of his second. “Surely it all got sorted in the end. You mentioned taking a bath.”  
  
John has him by the wrist before he can get another word in edgewise.  
  
“You bloody stupid,” John gasps between kisses, letting his teeth catch on Sherlock's lower lip, and everything's gone dizzy again, “positively _infuriating_ —”  
  
“Your sentiments are returned, rest assured,” Sherlock manages, wheeling around so that now his back's to the foot of the bed and John's simultaneously backing him up against it and hauling Sherlock down for another kiss, so _this_ is what it's like to be properly snogged, and—  
  
And he's falling, just like that, one foot cleverly knocked out from under him by John's ankle wrapped around his own. He lands hard on the mattress, breath not quite knocked out of him, managing to scoot up towards the pillows so his legs aren't dangling over the edge even as John's crawling up over him, knees on either side of Sherlock's hips, hands braced parallel with Sherlock's shoulders. The pillows swallow them a little, but then one slides beneath Sherlock's head, John's fingers tangling almost roughly in his hair, and Sherlock opens his mouth to the swipe of John's tongue and oh _God_ he could die happy right now.  
  
“You're quiet,” says John, almost amazed, nuzzling from Sherlock's jaw down to the hollow of his throat. “I would've expected more chatter. You never stop.”  
  
“Consider it a compliment,” Sherlock says, managing to work both hands up and under John's shirt.  
  
It's a pull-over, no buttons, which is maddening, but, on the other hand, it's got plenty of give and John groans when Sherlock works his fingertips into the taut muscles running over his shoulder blades ( _massage: good idea, maybe later_ ). It doesn't take much to coax the shirt up and off, although it gets caught in the crook of John's left elbow and they spend the better part of the next few minutes laughing in an attempt to untwist and free it. Sherlock takes the opportunity to sit up and shrug out of his jacket, not caring where it lands, but John's on him again in a second, his fingers at Sherlock's buttons demanding. Sherlock sags back on his elbows and watches.  
  
“Christ, you'll be the death of me,” John sighs, running both hands from collarbone to bellybutton when he's finally got Sherlock's chest exposed. “Not because you keep leading me into danger, mind, but because I don't have the good sense to know when to stop.”  
  
“You shouldn't,” Sherlock says, letting his eyes snap shut. “Ever.”  
  
“Fuck,” John mutters, catching Sherlock's mouth in a bruising, possessive kiss. “ _Yes_.”  
  
Sherlock finds it astonishingly simple, then, to drag John's hand from his belly down just a bit lower, just _there_ , to let his breath catch and fail him and his fingernails dig hard and merciless into John's shoulders as he pushes Sherlock's pants and trousers down just enough to free him, take him in a grip far too knowing for words, and wring sounds of pained amazement from his throat.  
  
“ _Shhh_ ,” John murmurs, voice hushed, directly in his ear now. “Sherlock.”  
  
He's unwinding, delirious, has nothing left but John's touch and John's voice.  
  
“If you stop, I—will _kill_ —”  
  
“Stop what?” John asks, his voice rough. He's been thrusting against Sherlock's thigh for some while now, still half-dressed. _Brilliant_.  
  
“ _Talking_ ,” Sherlock grits out, but it's far too late because the next thing he means to say is lost to a shout, to the fact that he's pulled John down as close as he's able, and he's coming, _hard_ , and John's mouth is pressed to his temple as his nerve-endings shatter.  
  
It's a bit like resurfacing from a devastatingly good hit, except Sherlock's got just enough presence of mind to return John's slow, intoxicated kisses and pop the button of his jeans, and before long John is naked, they're _both_ naked, and even as boneless as Sherlock feels he can still meet John thrust for thrust, hold his eyes wide open as they're forehead to forehad and John comes with Sherlock's impossibly broken name on his lips.  
  
And there's the quiet aftwerward, the wondrous stillness, how heavy John is when he ceases to support the weight of everything else around him. Sherlock takes him, wraps both arms around him, _savors_ his every last harsh and shaken breath.  
  
“If I'd been talking,” Sherlock says at length, working his fingers tentatively through John's damp hair, “I wouldn't have been able to hear _you_.”  
  
John shakes with silent laughter, forming a kiss against Sherlock's earlobe.  
  
“It's a wonder you did anyway,” he says.  
  
For the first time, Sherlock doesn't feel the need for some clever retort.  
  
_That's how I know_ , he thinks, drifting. _How I know what you said is true_.  
  
  
  
  
  
**_Occasionally I enjoy this thing called sleeping_**  
  
When John wakes his head hurts (that would be the wine, should have gone with the beer instead) and there’s an octopus wrapped around him.  
  
Once he’s a little more awake he realises it is not an octopus, but, rather, Sherlock, whose ridiculously long limbs seem to be wound around John’s body several times over. His face is pressed into John’s neck and he’s snoring lightly into his ear. There’s dark curly hair _everywhere_ (it’s in his nose, _how_ is it in his nose) and John’s fairly certain they’re soldered together at the stomach by dried come.  
  
It’s too hot, too uncomfortable, too close— _and_ it's quite possibly the best waking-up of John’s life.  
  
He stays still lest he disturb Sherlock, who is now _drooling_ on him (and his mood is so good that even _that_ is endearing; Christ, he’s hopeless) and considers how just twenty-odd hours ago he’d been in London, sitting at the kitchen table between a plate of bats’ wings and a container of liquid nitrogen, staring in disbelief at the flight confirmation in his e-mail. His heart had pounded so that he thought it might fall right from his chest, into a convenient jar for Sherlock to dissect once he arrived home (and the thought of that didn’t bother John as much as it ought, and anyway Sherlock already knew the inside of his heart).  
  
The hours following were vague, caught up in the fog of shock and Heathrow. He remembers packing, if you can call throwing jumpers and pants and socks and oh, yes, trousers into his army rucksack packing. He hasn’t even brought toothpaste, but that’s all right, Sherlock had said he'd got some in town. The Swedish _do_ have very nice teeth, after all.  
  
(Definitely mustn’t forget toothpaste. He had every reason to keep his breath fresh now.)  
  
John closes his eyes and breathes deep the scent of hotel sheets, whatever Sherlock’s been putting in his hair, and sex. God, _sex_ , sex with _Sherlock_. He’d had it, at least sex by some definition. John had been prepared for the possibility (probability), and that had been why he’d had several glasses of wine on the flight (a nightmare of quiet panic at 30,000 feet), but the reality of the situation still caught him off-guard. He hadn’t expected it to be _fun_ and even a little bit ridiculous, and he certainly hadn’t expected Sherlock to be so malleable. It’s as though the prospect of sex—or, perhaps, the prospect of sex with _John_ , which makes something warm unfold itself deep in John’s belly—somehow manages to switch off the part of Sherlock’s wasps' nest of a brain that makes him a complete bastard and turns him into a soft, spongy substance John can get his hands in. John thinks he’s got Sherlock all over him, seeping into his skin, a color he could never wash out, if he even wanted to.  
  
Sherlock moves suddenly, arms and legs unfolding into an enormous stretch that reminds John of the big cats on nature programmes. He can feel the hot breath of Sherlock’s yawn against his cheek, and then the limbs are back and winding around him, keeping him in place. Sherlock grunts.  
  
“Too early,” he mumbles. “You’re not human if you’re awake this early.”  
  
John sniffs. “It’s half-eleven,” he says. “We should get out of bed. Get breakfast. What’s Swedish for breakfast?”  
  
“Fish paste, apparently.” Sherlock grimaces. “I rather enjoy the reindeer, but I’m not fond of the fish paste.”  
  
“This,” says John, “from the man who _likes_ Marmite.”  
  
Sherlock rolls them over, pins John to the mattress, and looms over him.  
  
“Good morning.”  
  
“'Morning.” John reaches up and pushes the hair out of Sherlock’s eyes. “If I can find breakfast free of fish paste, can we get some?”  
  
Sherlock sighs. “They can _bring_ us breakfast,” he says. “Which eliminates the need for us to leave this bed for the foreseeable future.”  
  
John grins. It’s not a bad idea, to be fair: sex, room service, odd Swedish telly, more sex. Looking up at Sherlock, or, rather, at Sherlock’s mouth, John is _very_ tempted by the plan. Tempted enough to curl a hand around the back of Sherlock’s neck and draw him down for a soft kiss, lips only slightly parted, enough to taste Sherlock’s stale breath when he exhales.  
  
“Then we're in agreement,” says Sherlock against John’s mouth. “I’ll have them send up everything but the fish paste.” He dives for the phone, but John holds on.  
  
“Believe me,” John says, “if we were back home in London, I would have no problem at _all_ with staying in, but we’re in Stockholm. I’ve never been here. Wouldn’t mind a look around.” He pauses, wonders if the next bit he’s about to say is _too_ ridiculous. “Especially with you as my guide.”  
  
Sherlock flops on his side, his hair in his eyes again, looks at John as one might look at a malfunctioning toaster or clogged drain. “You’re joking,” he says. “You want to go sight-seeing.” He throws back the blankets, exposing his nakedness. Sherlock is very tall—it’s a _lot_ of nakedness. “These sights aren’t enough for you?”  
  
John smirks. “Nothing I haven’t seen when you’ve burnt your clothes off during an experiment,” he says. “Or that time on a case when you drank an entire bottle of rum to see if a man could climb a ladder while sloshed. Why you thought you had to do it in the nude—”  
  
“I felt more aerodynamic,” said Sherlock, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (to him, of course, it was). “And anyway. That was _before_ , when you weren’t driven to distraction by my body.”  
  
“Who says I wasn’t?” asks John. Sherlock blinks, and John realises he doesn’t _know_. “This isn’t new,” he says. “I was certainly distracted. Once you passed out and I cleaned up the sick off the bathroom floor, I went up and had a very nice wank. And if that’s not, ah, affection, being able to wank off to you after having been vomited on—”  
  
“Remind me never, ever to look in the folder on your laptop where you keep your pornography.”  
  
John swats him. “What I’m saying is, I’ve gone without for this long. I can wait a bit in order to go out and walk a bit.” He slides out of bed. “I’m going to have a shower.”  
  
The invitation to join him hangs in the air, unspoken. Fortunately, Sherlock can be an _excellent_ listener, and John’s barely under the spray before he’s enveloped once again in the long, warm, wet expanse of Sherlock Holmes. He leans back against him, eyes closed, with a sigh.  
  
“At this rate,” he says, inhaling sharply when Sherlock’s hand slides down over his belly and wraps around his cock, “we’re never getting out of here. Sweden will remain a land of myth and legend. And fish paste.”  
  
“Oh, shut up,” says Sherlock, into his ear. “And don’t mention the fish paste again.” He spins John around and pushes him up against the tile, then drops to his knees with a crack that John knows has to have hurt, but Sherlock doesn’t even wince. He’s too distracted by pulling John’s foreskin back with all the precision and focus of a scientist.  
  
John groans and sags against the shower wall. “Not nice to tease,” he says. “If you’re planning to do something, do it, don’t just faff abou— _ohfuck_.”  
  
Sherlock has swallowed him down in one swift movement and it’s all John can do to stay upright. As it is he makes an undignified squawking sound and stuffs a fist in his mouth, his other hand landing somewhere on Sherlock’s hair, fingers tangled in wet curls. Sherlock is _entirely_ too accomplished at this, and for a moment John’s fog of pleasure is cut by a sharp sense of jealousy, that Sherlock has done this to someone else, _others_. John, feeling irrational (as is to be expected, as Sherlock’s tongue flickers against the tip of his cock; there’s no room for rational thought in his world right now), wonders how long it would take him to identify, track down, and messily dispatch every single one of those people.  
  
Then Sherlock begins to suck, and all thoughts of premeditated homicide (indeed, all thought in general) leave John’s brain and he’s left with tunnel vision, centering on the heat of Sherlock’s mouth. He forces himself to look down and, when he sees Sherlock’s eyes closed, his brow furrowed in concentration and _intent_ , it’s all he needs for the first spasm to force a litany of gibberish from him, his body bucking and tensing as he empties himself between Sherlock’s lips. Somewhere along the line he’s sure he’s shouted Sherlock’s name, but he isn’t entirely certain it had been in a language anyone could've understood.  
  
When Sherlock pulls off and John can see the ripple of that long, pale throat as he swallows, his legs give out and he sinks to the floor of the shower. He’s only vaguely aware of Sherlock tilting his face to the spray, opening his mouth, and taking a few mouthfuls of water. He swished thoroughly before spitting it out.  
  
“Sorry,” says Sherlock, a touch sheepishly. “It’s not the taste, but the consistency that puts me off.”  
  
“You...didn’t have to do that,” says John, a bit out of breath. “I don’t much like it either.”  
  
Sherlock looks at him. “Would you do it for me?” he asks.  
  
John nods. “Yes.”  
  
“But you don’t have to.” Sherlock smiles. “Ergo, there’s not much point in telling me I don’t have to do something when it’s perfectly clear that has no bearing on my willingness to do it.”  
  
“Oh, fuck your logic,” says John, with a half-arsed glare. “Bloody scientists.”  
  
Sherlock shuffles proudly, like the bear that’s caught the salmon.  
  
“Point to me. One, love.”  
  
At the word _love_ John feels his ears go hot, which means they’re pink, which of course means Sherlock will notice because Sherlock notices _everything_. He’s already told Sherlock he loves him, albeit by text and in bloody Swedish, but he wonders if he ought to say it again, properly this time. It’s not an easy subject to broach, because Sherlock doesn’t seem the sort to be interested in sentiment.

Would it ever be something he can say aloud? Or would he be limited to electronic terms of endearment? Ought he bookmark the website that presents _I love you_ in multiple languages?  
  
“Keep thinking so hard and you’ll do yourself an injury,” says Sherlock, poking him.  
  
John scowls. “Says the man with the hard-on,” he says, “that’s going to stay that way if he doesn’t shut his mouth.”  
  
Sherlock grins and slides closer, heedless of the fact that his various limbs don’t allow much room for cuddling at the bottom of a shower. He mouths at John’s ear. “You like my mouth,” he says, and John _knows_ he’s doing that low, rumbly thing with his voice _on purpose_. “Particularly when it’s open.”  
  
John rolls his eyes but can’t quite prevent the shiver that runs through him. “Fine,” he says, though there’s no bite to it. He reaches between Sherlock’s legs and wraps his hand around his cock. “But only because we’re wasting valuable sightseeing time.”  
  
When Sherlock groans, John isn’t sure it’s because of the hand-job, or the insistence that once he comes, and once they’re dry and dressed, they’re going to go out and experience Culture—whether he likes it or not. Then, he kisses him, nips his lip, and Sherlock comes with a groan.  
  
Definitely the hand-job.  
  
When they finally emerge from the hotel the sky is so blue it hurts the eyes. They find breakfast in a small café. Sherlock orders his food in easy Swedish, opting for something called a _smörgås_ , which turns out to be a pile of things on bread and butter. John opts for muesli, though he does live dangerously and agree to having it with _filmjölk_. It’s not terrible, but not brilliant either, and he doesn’t finish his muesli, instead using his fork to filch a few tomatoes from Sherlock’s odd sandwich.  
  
“It is not always wise to do as the Romans do,” says Sherlock, pushing his plate a little closer to John so that they can share properly.  
  
“Especially when in Sweden,” says John, flicking a tomato seed at Sherlock.  
  
Outside, Sherlock hides behind a pair of sunglasses that make his face look as though it is going very fast. At first John is put off by it, afraid Sherlock is going to play aloof, feign disinterest in exploring Stockholm with him—until Sherlock unabashedly takes John’s arm, tucking it into his own.  
  
“All right,” he says. “You want to play tourist, let’s play tourist. What does your little guide-book suggest we do first?”  
  
John grins and reaches into his pocket, leaning into Sherlock a bit more as he flips it open and decides how they’ll spend their day. Though it doesn’t really matter what they do. That isn’t why he’s here.  
  
It’s that they’re doing it _together_.  
  
  
  
  
  
**_Never seems to be anything but flawless blue_**  
  
It's roughly the kind of day Sherlock has heard described at least a dozen times by Molly, who, as a bundle of walking contradictions, enjoys chick flicks just as much as she enjoys horror films.  
  
They spend it aimlessly wandering _Gamla stan_ , the Old Town, as John's guide-book (of _course_ he'd choose Lonely Planet over Rough Guide) says it ought not to be missed. John has got it in his head, after poking fruitlessly into a few eccentric antique shops (there'd been a Reformation-era German woodcarving of a skull perched on a stack of books, with chipped paint, that was either intended as a candle-holder or a macabre conversation piece; in any case, Sherlock had wanted it, but John had taken one look at the price-tag and given him a look so severe he'd felt guilty even suggesting the purchase), that the _Storkyrkan_ with its dull, sealed tombs and strange bone sculptures is where they ought to go next. Perhaps there will be something of interest in the sculptures.  
  
What's of interest, as it turns out, is John's absorbed stillness as he moves through the space.  
  
Sherlock has never felt at home in churches, be they small village chapels or the great cathedrals of York and Wells (although he admits a grudging aesthetic fondness for the latter two). John seems neither comfortable, nor uncomfortable, moving from tomb to statue to row of softly flickering tea-lights with equal fascination and reverence. It's a way of losing oneself for which Sherlock has never had the knack; he's convinced on some irrational level that the statuary are mocking him, and so are the dead, locked safely away with their secrets.  
  
The monumental statue of Saint George is unexpected, borne up on an intricately arranged pile of bones both animal and human. Skulls, antlers, femurs, ribs, scapulae, jawbones, the odd humerus—there's something monstrously satisfying in the confusion of dry, yellowing remains. None of them are present by chance; unabashedly, they've been placed on display, and for those with eyes to see, they reveal a multitude of sins.  
  
Sherlock draws a slow breath, pointing. The tibia just below George's foot ( _female, forty-four or forty-five years of age, late fifteenth-century or early sixteenth_ )—  
  
“Later,” John says. “Not here. Isn't it enough just to look?”  
  
“Perhaps,” Sherlock admits, resolutely shutting his mouth. _Broken as a result of domestic violence, healed slowly and painfully, caused her trouble once arthritis had set in_.  
  
Sherlock is busy watching John light a candle for some unspecified reason ( _Harry or a lost comrade from the war, no doubt_ ) when his mobile buzzes in his pocket. He'd at least remembered to turn the sound off, but only because John had given him a disapproving look.  
  
  
_Congratulations are in order, I should think.  
There's only one bed in that hotel room, and choosy  
though you are, you've outdone yourself this time.  
  
Mycroft_  
  
  
Sherlock wrinkles his nose and fires off a response, all too aware of John's irritated gaze.  
  
  
_Is that why you abducted him, then? To run  
your mad Matchmaker's Test? That never goes well,  
much though you'd like to think it does. Piss off.  
  
SH_  
  
  
Sherlock's phone buzzes again just in time for John to sidle up next to him.  
  
  
_Perhaps I've outdone myself this time, too.  
Put your phone away; it's not polite to text  
in a church. You could at least have waited.  
  
Mycroft_  
  
  
“On that count, at least,” John admits, taking the phone off of Sherlock, “I agree with him.”  
  
“What,” Sherlock asks, pursuing him back to the entrance, “that you are, in fact, quite a catch? Bit too egotistical for you, come to think of it, so no, you must have meant—”  
  
“You are not,” says John, pink to the cheeks and ears in a way that has nothing to do with sun exposure, “allowed to have your phone back for the rest of the day,” he adds, tucking it in his back pocket. “And if you think that stunt you pulled in the cab with my wallet will get you anywhere, it won't. In fact, if you so much as try, you'll regret it.”  
  
Sherlock smirks at him, but, judging by John's reaction, it comes off as more of a grin.  
  
“No crime scenes for a week?” he asks, attempting to sound crestfallen.  
  
“No crime scenes for as long as I'm here with you, thank you _very_ much, but, no, I'd been thinking something more along the lines of...” John trails off as they exit the building, pacing slowly down the low, broad stairs. “No _reciprocation_ , if you follow me.”  
  
“I already told you,” says Sherlock, exasperated, “you don't have to.”  
  
“No more than you do,” John counters. “But it's something I _want_.”  
  
_I want to leave_ , Sherlock thinks, finding the urge to back John up against the nearest stretch of cathedral wall almost unbearable. _I want to go back to the hotel and strip you naked and see if it's possible to just kiss you till you come_.  
  
“Later,” says John, again, quietly, as if he'd heard every word.  
  
Sherlock relishes the darkness of his tone, the fierce edge of longing to mirror his own, the—  
  
_Resentment?_  
  
“If something's bothering you, now would be a good time to clear the air,” Sherlock sighs. “I'm never fond of letting these things run unchecked. They cause trouble in the long run.”  
  
“Says the man who's married to his work. Tell me, do your test subjects often express trepidation?”  
  
Sherlock grits his teeth. John's tone is bitingly sarcastic, even if he's trying to temper it.  
  
“I've done this before, you know,” he snaps. “Just not very often.”  
  
“No,” says John, with a short laugh. “That much is clear, although...” He trails off again, as if he knows he's going to regret what he's about to say, and, oh, he _is_. “This morning, you seemed quite...what's the word I'm looking for. Adept? Or in the very least _practiced_.”  
  
“Once or twice,” Sherlock admits candidly. “That's all. And no, I can't remember exactly if it was once _or_ twice. Deleted, as with so many other useless pieces of data. Not worth keeping.”  
  
John's actually stopped walking, frozen to the spot. Sherlock backtracks and stands directly in front of him. A few French tourists huff and brush past them, muttering to each other.  
  
“Once or twice,” John repeats, dazed and contrite and, sod it, Sherlock leans down to taste these emotions on his lips each in their turn, briefly, until John draws back and blinks in unmistakable apology. “Not worth keeping? Well, then. I hope—”  
  
“You, on the other hand,” says Sherlock, taking John's arm as he had done earlier, “are not marked for such a fate. One might even say I've already backed you up.”  
  
“Computer metaphors don't really suit you,” replies John, cheerfully, but it's obvious he's still reeling from this revelation and whatever it might happen to be worth. “Horribly clichéd.”  
  
“Then find me some new ones,” Sherlock suggests. “ _You're_ the blogger.”  
  
“The blogger, as a matter of fact, is on holiday. It'll just have to wait.”  
  
Sherlock breathes a covert sigh of relief as John leads him back down to the main street. It's just past one, so they go in search of lunch and end up in a truly decadent coffee-and-pastry shop that doesn't serve anything that John would qualify as a proper meal. Nonetheless, he enjoys a mocha with one too many shots of espresso and makes several attempts at stealing a bite of Sherlock's apricot danish, which overtures Sherlock fends off expertly with his fork.  
  
“You've got your own. I've never seen such a tarted-up cinnamon bun; you ought to be thankful I haven't yet rescued it from your gross negligence.”  
  
At that, John picks up his pastry and takes a vindictive bite. His expression, previously teasing, melts into some approximation of the one Mrs. Hudson makes when she's had a taste of excellent homemade shortbread, only far more indecent and too attractive for words.  
  
Sherlock swallows a mouthful of Earl Grey and wonders what John's expression had been like that morning in the shower. He'd been just intent enough, even just _nervous_ enough, to close his eyes. Completely unforgivable.  
  
“That,” says John, finally, licking his lips, “was so good it's unfair. Why don't we have one of these places in London?”  
  
“Because Starbucks has got a street-level monopoly, and the tea room at Fortnum  & Mason has foolishly chosen to focus on gourmet ice cream,” Sherlock reminds him, reaching for another packet of sugar. John grabs his hand, but Sherlock yanks it away, packet in tow.  
  
“You'll be diabetic by the time you're forty,” John protests.  
  
“Better sugar than smoking, I thought,” Sherlock points out.  
  
“Yes, well,” John sighs. “Given recent events, I'd rather like to keep you for as long as I can.”  
  
Sherlock chokes on the next gulp and ends up with John at his side and a napkin pressed to his lips as he coughs and coughs and _coughs_. By the time the fit is over, John has pulled his chair around so that they're side by side, so close their thighs touch, and Sherlock can't help but slump back into the slight pressure of John's steady palm between his shoulder blades.  
  
“Sorry,” is all he can manage, because reading it is one thing, and _hearing_ it is another.  
  
John smiles one of Sherlock's favorites, the one that's concerned, fond, and terrified all at once.  
  
“Shall I give you fair warning next time?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock says, and, just like that, they're kissing in public for the third time and can't be arsed to care who might be staring. It's astonishing that no one's recognized him yet, given his face has been in a handful of the local newspapers (well against his wishes). He'd given up on the sunglasses rather quickly when he'd realized John doesn't like not being able to see his eyes.  
  
They leave enough cash to cover the bill and leave in a silent, mutually agreed hurry.  
  
Sherlock would feel smug about the fact John no longer seems to care so much about experiencing Culture (he'd heard the unequivocal capital), except now he's sprawled out naked on the freshly made hotel bed (housekeeping had departed no fewer than nineteen minutes before they'd returned), and John has buried his face against Sherlock's stomach, licking just below his navel.  
  
“Shouldn't have discredited the sights on offer,” murmurs John, a bit hoarsely, and it's enough to make Sherlock shudder and take hold of John's hands where they rest at his hips, tugging urgently. John's hands slide down to Sherlock's thighs, and he breathes in, nuzzling lower, sighing as Sherlock's erection brushes against his cheek.  
  
With an undignified jerk of his hips, Sherlock whimpers.  
  
“Then _do_ something,” he says, hissing as John moves one hand to gently cup his cock and turns his head to press a kiss against it. He fists his hands in the duvet to keep them from shaking. John strokes Sherlock's right wrist with his free hand as he takes the head into his mouth.  
  
That John has done this a few more times than Sherlock has is, under the circumstances, fortunate. Sherlock wonders if John can read in the tensing of his body and by the sounds that pass his lips that he's never been on the receiving end before. Without warning, John takes as much of Sherlock into his mouth as he's able, and it's too much, too far beyond Sherlock's fevered imaginings to last.  
  
He comes gasping, helpless, and John groans around him, surprise and fierce want intermingled.  
  
What Sherlock discovers next, once John has recovered himself (admirably, given no nearby source of either water or tissues), is that kissing John to orgasm is, in fact, perfectly achievable. Sherlock thrusts up against him, spent and hypersensitive though he is, wrapping himself around John as fully as he can, greedily swallowing John's groan as he collapses trembling against him.  
  
They clean up with an errant sock, never mind whose, and kick back the covers, curling tightly, wordlessly into one another for a long, drowsy time. Sherlock hides his face in the sweat-damp curve of John's neck and wonders if this is how they're meant to settle: forever dancing around the written, albeit on no uncertain terms.  
  
Later that evening, at Nalen, John has one too many bottles of mixed-berry cider and ends up raving about the reindeer steak all the way home. Sherlock feels vindicated, and it's unspeakably pleasant to all but support John's weight on his shoulder as they meander their way back.  
  
He knows enough Swedish to translate the one text message he'll never let himself delete.  
  
  
  
  
  
**_You ought to take a boat tour_**  
  
John appreciates stillness a bit more than most people he knows.  
  
Funnily enough, it has nothing to do with Afghanistan, or even Sherlock, and everything to do with his childhood. Harry, two years his senior, was a cyclone of loudness, caught up in drama often of her own making. His father was forgetful, always tearing the house apart looking for his spectacles, his papers, a misplaced book. It was a rare morning John wasn’t woken up by questions about the last known location of the car keys. And his mother taught piano, which meant that from Tuesday to Friday, and on alternating Saturday evenings, some poor child would be seated at the upright in the sitting room, plunking his or her way through the scales or murdering Beethoven.  
  
Frankly, the long, dark nights in the Afghan desert—even with gunfire in the distance—had been infinitely quieter.  
  
This silence, however, the silence of a hotel room in the very early hours of the morning, when the traffic outside is light and Sherlock’s not snoring (for once), is something John savours. He sits at the desk and sips at his surprisingly decent, courtesy-of-the-hotel instant _kaffe_ , studying the tasteful yet very beige décor of the room and letting the quiet wrap itself around him. Sherlock lets out a soft little huff and flips over to his back, dead to the world and spread out over the bed like an enormous starfish with ridiculous hair. John smiles.  
  
_It’s a cocoon,_ he thinks. _A cocoon we’ve spun around ourselves, so we can change from what we were into something else._  
  
It’s the _something else_ that has him awake before dawn, staring at Sherlock as he sleeps, wondering what they will be when they finally emerge. It’s one thing, carrying on like a pair of honeymooners while on holiday, but how is it going to go once they’re back in London? The question of bedrooms, of telling the people in their lives, of the effect it will have on their working together on cases, their day-to-day interactions.  
  
These are the issues they never really address in the rom coms.  
  
John’s coffee has gone cold so he puts the mug on the desk and rises, decides to have a shower. It’s early still, but there’s no going back to sleep once he’s properly worrying about something, so he may as well get started on the day. Sherlock’s guaranteed to sleep for another few hours, plenty of time to get clean and dressed and perhaps slip out to enjoy a little of Stockholm on his own.  
  
In the bath he catches sight of himself, naked, in the enormous mirror over the sink. _Not too bad,_ he thinks, _a bit squidgy here and there, got to stop getting burgers for lunch at the McDonald’s across from the surgery, but otherwise rather fit._ The puckered scar on his shoulder, about the size of a fifty-pence coin, doesn’t much bother him. Sherlock finds it fascinating, but then again, Sherlock finds all of him fascinating, which John doesn’t quite understand. Is it flattering to be enjoyed by a man who also enjoys entrails and arterial spray patterns and 101 Things To Do With Thermite In One’s Bathtub?  
  
John smiles at himself. _Yes_ , he thinks. _Yes, it is._  
  
He doesn’t dress immediately after his shower, opting instead to shrug on one of the complimentary dressing gowns and pad barefoot over to the bed. Sherlock is, as expected, still sleeping. He’s got one of the pillows clutched to his chest, his other arm flung over his head, fingers tangled in his own hair. He’s snoring. It should not be attractive, not in the least, but John finds himself inexplicably drawn down to the bed, crawling over it carefully, easing the sheets away from where they’ve gathered around Sherlock’s middle.  
  
It is fortunate for John that Sherlock sleeps like the many dead things strewn around their flat. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of Sherlock’s pants and tugs them down, just far enough. Sherlock is flaccid, of course, when John takes him in hand and squeezes gently.

There’s a part of him that feels almost guilty for doing this while Sherlock sleeps, but it’s drowned out by the thrill of it, of how Sherlock might react should he wake up.  Or how things might go if he _doesn’t_.  
  
Sherlock does wake up, and, by then, he’s hard and halfway down John’s throat. John hears the little gasp of surprise and lifts his eyes to it, finds Sherlock gazing at him in astonishment.  
  
“ _John_ ,” he croaks. “You—”  
  
He sifts a shaking hand through John’s hair and John sucks harder, hands firm on Sherlock’s hips. Sherlock’s head falls back and he groans something incoherent. John is certain Sherlock’s never been woken up by a blow-job before, and he has his suspicions, after last night, that Sherlock’s experience with this end of things might be limited at best.  
  
_Quite a bit more fun to teach than the solar system_ , John thinks with an awkward smirk.  
  
Sherlock comes with John’s name in his throat, and John takes him deep and swallows neatly. He pulls off with an obscene slurp and licks his lips, grinning at Sherlock.  
  
“Good morning,” he says, tucking Sherlock back into his pants and slithering up over him for a kiss. “Now, go back to sleep.”  
  
“Oh, sod it.” Sherlock flops back and blinks at the ceiling. “It’s morning, isn’t it? You’ll be wanting to go out. I’ll get up.”  
  
He starts to sit up but John presses a hand to his chest. “I think I’ll go out on my own for a bit,” he says with a smile. “You can sleep in. We’ll do something in the afternoon, before dinner.”  
  
Sherlock looks confused. “Have I done something?” he asks. “I’ve been polite to strangers, I’m currently ignoring three unsolved crimes that have occurred since yesterday, I didn’t bring that dead goose back to the room, I—”  
  
“All things very much appreciated,” laughs John. “It’s all right. You haven’t done anything, I’m not angry with you. Do you really think I’d have done _that_ if I were?”  
  
Sherlock relaxes. “All right,” he says. “Text me when you get bored. Because you will without me.”  
  
John snorts. “I’ll muddle through,” he says. “Somehow.” He slides off the bed and goes to clean his teeth and get dressed. By the time he returns to sit on the edge of the bed and put on his shoes, Sherlock is asleep again.

John pecks him on the temple, grabs a key-card, and slips quietly from the room.

It’s a bit daunting, venturing out into Stockholm alone. He doesn’t speak the language, can’t read a bloody word of it. He stares at his little map like an idiot for ages before giving up, pointing himself in a random direction and walking. He’s not after seeing anything particular this morning. He just wants to have a look around, get a bit of thinking in. It’s difficult to think around Sherlock; John likens Sherlock’s brain to a very powerful electrical device that, when switched on, drains the energy from other brains around him. John doesn’t feel stupid around Sherlock so much as he feels he’s blown a fuse and is feeling around in the dark, Sherlock the only source of light.  
  
It’s a warm, overcast day, and the streets are full of people, natives and tourists alike, walking very quickly or stopping suddenly in inconvenient places. John catches sight of the waterfront and remembers telling Sherlock to take a boat tour.

 _Could be something nice to do later_ , he thinks. _Romantic, even. Silly, but romantic._  
  
Almost in the same instant he remembers the girl. Agna. He stops and stares into the water and can almost see, through Sherlock’s eyes, the young, pale body floating almost gracefully in the waves.  
  
_No,_ thinks John with a wince, _a boat tour would probably not be a very nice idea after all._  
  
He decides to take one by himself. Wandering the waterfront, he finds one with signs in English that promise a tour of historic Stockholm. A hundred and fifty kroner later he’s ensconced on board, sandwiched between an American couple and a short, blonde girl from Australia. As the boat drifts leisurely off and on its way, John realises he’s left his camera back in the hotel, but he’s still got his phone. It will do.  
  
The guide is pleasant enough but John finds his focus slipping from the tour, his eyes skating over the sights (the _Stadthaus_ is fairly impressive, though). Instead, John finds himself wondering things like _Is Sherlock awake yet?_ and _I hope he remembers to eat breakfast_ and _Does he miss me?_ The latter makes him feel like a ridiculous teenage girl, but he can’t _help_ it; his mind is almost always on Sherlock, it’s only natural to wonder if Sherlock does him the same obsessive courtesy. Being the subject of that single-mindedness, now that he’s experienced it in short but intense bursts, is a thrill John doesn’t think he’ll ever, _ever_ get tired of.  
  
John looks over at the American couple. He’s spent enough time around Sherlock to be able to read them as plainly as his guidebook: the man is nervous, fidgeting with something in his pocket. He keeps looking down-river, looking for something specific. A landmark. The woman is smiling, pointing at things, taking pictures with an expensive camera. He’s going to propose, and she has no idea.  
  
_It’s funny_ , thinks John. _That ought to be me_. It might’ve been, had things with Sarah not faded out before they really had a chance to start. It’s what he’s supposed to want, wasn’t it? A nice woman to go on dates with. They’d have a favourite restaurant, or they’d stay in and he’d cook for them, eat in front of the telly, cuddled together on the sofa. He’d meet her parents, she’d meet his sister. There’d be their first Christmas together. Then, a holiday—Tenerife or Majorca, or Paris. He’d be the nervous man with his hand in his pocket, watching her and waiting.

A wedding. Children. Old age. A life completely ordinary, completely normal.  
  
For years, he’d wanted these things. Thinking of them kept him sane in the darker parts of the war, then the fighting was so loud it drowned out everything good. He could find _normal_ inside his own head, and on many nights he lay in his camp-cot, staring into the darkness and constructing normal life after normal life in his mind. Which inevitably meant that upon returning to England, there was no way any normal life he tried to make for himself would ever live up to the one in his head. He isn’t normal, will never _be_ normal. And normal will never work for him.  
  
Now, though, he knows for sure that there are things _better_ than normal.  
  
So, instead, he goes out for dim sum with Sherlock after cases. They do have a favourite restaurant, and sometimes John makes them stay in, to save money, and cooks the only thing he knows how to make, risotto, and Sherlock wolfs it down messily as though it is his last meal. They eat in front of the telly, John attempting to balance his laptop on Sherlock’s shins, because Sherlock takes up the _entire_ sofa and claims he can’t _think_ unless he is stretched out as long as possible. John’s met Sherlock’s brother, unfortunately, and Sherlock’s helped him peel Harry off the floor of her flat and wash the sick out of her hair. Their first Christmas together had been spent hiding in an abandoned theatre, John’s sleeve soaked in blood from a superficial knife-wound to the forearm, Sherlock’s coat still smouldering after an explosion. New Year's had been spent in a holding cell.  
  
And here they are, on holiday in Sweden. There isn’t likely to be a wedding (though John won’t rule out the possibility of a quiet appointment at the registry office someday; he has enough romance left in him to hope for that, at least), and there definitely won’t be any children (the idea is pleasant enough, but John has enough trouble getting Sherlock to remember to look after himself; adding another toddler to the relationship would do him in completely). Old age might be a bit hard to come by, the way things often go for them, but provided their luck holds out (and Sherlock stops falling into the Thames) John imagines them one day taking up a house in the country, finding a hobby for Sherlock to keep him occupied while John opens a small practice in the local village. Peaceful.

 _Hateful_ , perhaps, to Sherlock, but, in John’s fantasies, he rarely lets Sherlock have the final word.  
  
Beside him, the man goes down on one knee. John doesn’t turn to watch, though he does applaud with the rest of the boat when she squeals in delight and kisses him. They’re sailing past a public garden, the landmark the man must have been waiting for. There are dozens, _hundreds_ of roses in bloom, red as blood, yellow as the girl’s hair. Insects hum lazily around them.  
  
_Beekeeping_ , thinks John with a smile.  
  
When he arrives back at the hotel, Sherlock is dressed and tapping away at his laptop.  
  
“I've had an email from Mrs. Hudson,” he says as John comes in. “A woman came to see me. Left a message about a dead sister, thinks there’s going to be an attempt on her li— _mmmf_.”  
  
John licks at Sherlock’s lips and parts them, kisses him deeply before pulling away.  
  
Sherlock blinks in surprise. “Hello,” he says. “Stimulating boat tour?”  
  
“How did you—”  
  
Sherlock plucks at John’s shirt. “You smell of the harbor,” he says. “And of tour-boat.”  
  
John nods. “Ah, of course.” He sits next to Sherlock on the bed. “It was lovely, yes. A couple got engaged on it.”  
  
“ _Mm_.” Sherlock’s attention has returned to the laptop. “I think we may need to cut our holiday short. This promises to be interesting, at least.”  
  
“I would hope you’re more interested in preventing the girl’s murder,” says John. “But I won’t hold my breath.”  
  
Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. “Of course, of course.” He closes the laptop and looks at John. “Engaged, you said.”  
  
John nods. “They looked happy.” He leans against Sherlock, head on his shoulder. “But I don’t envy them.”  
  
“Don’t you?”  
  
“No.” John leans in and presses the tip of his nose to the pulse just below Sherlock’s ear. “Not in the least.”  
  
Sherlock is quiet for a moment, then finds John’s hand and squeezes it.  
  
“I think,” he says, “I know where I’m taking you tonight.”

 

 

 

 ** _Helle would like to meet you_**  
  
_This is the hard part_ , Sherlock thinks as they make their way up a familiar, quiet residential street in the falling light. It's late, far later than Sherlock would have preferred make a house-call, but Helle's response to his text had been telling: _Please come after dinner. I will at least be awake._ He'd considered not showing it to John, but had immediately thought better of it.  
  
“Is she seeing a therapist?” John had asked.  
  
“I don't know,” Sherlock had said, because it was true.  
  
They've said very little for most of the journey. From their hotel to Helle's flat, it's a thirty-minute walk. Sherlock had suggested a cab, but John had preferred the idea of going on foot. He's feeling the strain of it now, Sherlock can tell, after two straight days of traipsing around an unfamiliar city. His limp is showing ever so slightly: imperceptible to the world at large, but not to Sherlock.  
  
“You're tired,” Sherlock says, taking hold of his arm. “We should have taken a cab.”  
  
“Yes, but we're almost there. You said she's at number thirty-six? We've reached twenty-eight.”  
  
Sherlock can't find a reasonable response, so he keeps his mouth shut and slows his pace.  
  
“They're not making her move out right away, are they?” John asks. “Her landlord, I mean.”  
  
“What?” Sherlock asks, bewildered. “No.”  
  
“You said she couldn't afford the flat now, with Agna gone.”  
  
“Oh,” Sherlock says. “No, she couldn't, but the Ambassador's given her Agna's job along with the pendant, including a significant pay-rise, so the problem's sorted for the time being.”  
  
“Except for the fact there are memories in every corner of that flat,” John points out. “Probably not good for her to stay on. She actually accepted the job? That must hurt, too.”  
  
“Needs must, given her situation,” replied Sherlock, grimly, slowing to a stop. “We're here.” Sherlock climbs the front steps and rings the doorbell once. He knows that's all it will take.  
  
“But the pendant's worth—I thought she'd sell—”  
  
John shuts his mouth the instant the door opens.  
  
The pendant, almost threatening, glitters softly in the dusk, nestled conspicuously at Helle's throat.  
  
Sherlock recalls his faint shock at her height, that, the first time her door had opened before him, he'd found himself looking this young woman almost directly in her pale, worried eyes. Now, in place of worry, he's staring into fathomless, black exhaustion, twin mirrors stripped of their backing. Helle's straight, dark hair falls almost to her waist, no longer in an unkempt, yet graceful upsweep. She smiles at Sherlock, and it's the sad, resigned recognition Sherlock has grown all too accustomed to seeing in murder victims' loved ones. It had never bothered him till now.  
  
“I've just made myself some coffee,” says Helle, instead of _H_ _ello_ or _T_ _here you are, finally_. She has an almost perfect radio voice, smooth intonation wrecked by a roughness that only frequent tears can lend. “If you don't mind waiting in there,” she says, pointing vaguely over her shoulder, “I'll heat some more water and be with you shortly.”  
  
Sherlock is about to refuse, but John says, “Thank you, that would be lovely.”  
  
Helle nods at him, her smile broadening in a way that Sherlock hadn't thought possible. He follows John inside as Helle slips away to the kitchen, her stockinged feet and long skirt a ghost-whisper behind her. She'd kept the pendant. _Kept it_. She wouldn't be wearing it if she intended to forget—ah, _no_. If she intended _others_ to forget. Of course.  
  
“I guess that answers my question,” says John, in a low voice. “Spoils of war. She must take enormous pride wearing that 'round the office. I've seen Afghan widows take up their fallen husbands' machine guns.”  
  
Sherlock helps himself to a seat on the low futon, since he's been invited to do so twice before and knows that Helle is well past the point of small courtesies anyway. She moves about the kitchen with a scalpel's precision, stillness punctuated by only the most necessary of cuts. John stares at the wall uncomfortably for a few seconds, listening intently, before sitting down beside Sherlock.  
  
Helle comes in five minutes later with a mug in each hand. Without speaking, she sets one down in front of each of them on the coffee table, leaves again, and returns carrying her own, plus a sugar bowl. This, she sets in front of John, and then walks around the table to sit down on the floor across from them. She seems not to notice that she's burned her wrist on the kettle, Sherlock realizes. She uses a traditional one, hob-heated, rather than electric.  
  
“I put in two sugars,” she says, pointing to Sherlock's mug. “There's nothing in yours, I'm afraid, so add whatever you want. I did not get as far as asking Sherlock how you take your coffee.”  
  
“Understandable,” says John, in that mystifyingly easy tone he takes with the distressed. “I'm a bit more mindful of my teeth,” he adds, adding half a teaspoon. “You see a lot of nasty stuff in my line of work.”  
  
“I thought you were a doctor, not a dentist?” Helle asks, watching John stir his coffee with determined fascination. She's focusing on the minutest of details, spinning an endless, weary thread from moment to moment. Sherlock has never seen anything like it.  
  
“I look down people's throats on a regular basis. It's kind of hard to ignore decaying molars.”  
  
Helle's eyes flit briefly to Sherlock's, her half-smile almost too fleeting to catch.  
  
“How lucky you are,” she says. “He looks after you.”  
  
“You need to look after _yourself_ ,” Sherlock says, and John's shock is as palpable as a slap in the face. Not angry, though, which is a relief. Helle lingers on John's expression, which Sherlock can't see, and it occurs to him they're locked in a perfect tableau: looking one to another to another.  
  
“I'm flattered by your concern,” says Helle, finally, breaking the awkward silence. Her eyes drift down to her cup, and she lifts it to her lips for a slow, deliberate sip. “But my sister comes around every morning, and Agna's parents keep insisting I should come stay with them.”  
  
Creases at the corners of her reddened eyes, lashes stuck together by residual salt. Hollow cheeks, weight falling away from an already slim frame. Fragile, too-steady hands. Sherlock knows all of these symptoms, but it's as if he's seeing them for the first time, adding them up, acknowledging the sum total of physical hardships that constitute grieving.  
  
When applied to John, even theoretically, they are completely unbearable.  
  
Helle gives him a strange, questioning look that retreats as quickly as it had come.  
  
“Never,” she says under her breath, closing her tired eyes. “Don't dream it.”  
  
Beside Sherlock, John swallows hard.  
  
It's as if she's hacked their email accounts, seen the entire conversation stored in the archives because neither one of them will delete it. The very thing they think they're so good at hiding is, in fact, on their sleeves and in their glances, suffusing every word they speak. Little wonder their allies can tell from so close, and even _less_ wonder that Moriarty can tell from a distance.  
  
“I don't,” John says before Sherlock can reply, “but I’m frightened of it. Every day.”  
  
“No joke,” Helle replies, giving them both a hard look. “You do dangerous work.”  
  
“If not us,” Sherlock asks, “then who would?”  
  
John will probably scold him for that later, tell him it's arrogant and offensive, but at the moment, all Sherlock can wonder, wildly, is _Who would?_  No one he knows of. Scotland Yard tries, certainly, as does any given local law-enforcement, but gross incompetency and preconceived notions all too often get in the way. Sherlock does what he does because—  
  
“Does it bother you that I could guess?” asks Helle, plaintively defiant. “That I could see?”  
  
_That you could see I can't help but care?_ Sherlock thinks, caught in a corner for all the world to see, because, well, John _is_ his world now, the rest of it be damned.  
  
“No,” he confesses, smiling with considerable difficulty. “Because you're not Anderson.”  
  
“I can't imagine this man,” Helle says, her voice strained with the shadow of laughter, spooning some more sugar into her coffee. “Surely no one is so hopeless.”  
  
“You told her about Anderson?” John asks, vaguely incredulous.  
  
“ _Is_ he so hopeless?” Helle prompts, directing the question at John.  
  
“Yes, actually. Lestrade ought to charge admission.”  
  
“I know about him, too. I wish such a person had been in charge here.”  
  
Sherlock takes a swallow of cold coffee. Neither one of them needs to ask what _here_ means, and, when it comes down to it, Sherlock would rather have Lestrade in charge than Dimmock or that dullard heading Stockholm's equivalent of Scotland Yard, no contest.  
  
Meanwhile, John is gaping at him. His look says, with unfettered astonishment: _You let her in. You gave this bright, grieving creature a glimpse of our life for no other reason than to keep her from slipping away. You're unbelievable, and not what you claim to be, either. That's amazing._  
  
“Perhaps I'll convince Mycroft to send him along next time,” Sherlock says, but he regrets it, because there should never be a next time, not _ever_. Not for Helle, at least.  
  
“Is there anybody in our sordid little circle he _didn't_ mention?” John asks.  
  
Helle's half-smile stays put this time. “If there is, I have no way of knowing.”  
  
“No, of course not,” John says, mildly abashed. “Silly question.”  
  
From this point, somehow, the conversation turns lighter. Sherlock scarcely finds it necessary to interject, and, in all honesty, he's grateful. The sound of John's voice weaving in and around Helle's is comforting, somehow, the element he'd been missing for the entirety of the affair. He can't think of it as a case, he finds, not strictly speaking. He's involved now, implicated. And when it comes to cases, Sherlock makes a point of not getting involved, except...  
  
Except when John's on the line; well, yes. He knows that now.  
  
Helle's phone goes off somewhere in the kitchen. She's gone for a while, giving Sherlock and John plenty of time to finish their coffee. John turns his hand against the sofa cushion, palm facing upward, inviting Sherlock's loosely curled fingers. Sherlock extends them, tracing John's lifeline. Helle's voice through the wall is rapid and upset. Sherlock can't make out many words, and the ones he can make out, he hasn't memorized the meanings for. It's her sister, perhaps, or Agna's parents. The sudden, choked silence means that she's crying, attempting to hide it.  
  
“Sherlock,” John murmurs. “We ought to leave, but I can't just...”  
  
“I'm not sure that your training would have covered something like this, unless you mean to imply that mercy killing is a speciality of yours.”  
  
John closes his eyes for a few seconds. His jaw tightens, then relaxes.  
  
“Right, we're not going to discuss how very _not good_ that was until later.”  
  
Helle stands in the doorway, bleary-eyed, watching them. _She's stepped straight out of a Poe story_ , Sherlock thinks, _white skin and disarrayed hair. Usher's sister. Ligeia. The very picture of death-ravaged beauty, as if she'd been the one in the water instead._  
  
“Sorry,” she says. “I'm going soon. My in-laws are coming to get me.”  
  
“I'm sure you'll be glad of their company,” John says, rising. “And they'll be glad of yours.”  
  
Her eyes fall on Sherlock even as her hand closes around the pendant, clutching it fiercely. Shine of fresh tears, manic and relentless. They don't stop. Won't stop. _Can't_.  
  
“They want me to sell it,” she says, disdainful and disconsolate.  
  
Sherlock rises and crosses the room. John is watching him, scrutinizing him more carefully than he ever has done before. Inevitably, Sherlock will say the wrong thing. He already has.  
  
_Do you love me even now?_ he wants to ask. _Will you love me even then?_  
  
Helle darts forward without warning, her long, slender arms closing about Sherlock's shoulders in a fierce, trembling embrace. Sherlock brings one hand up to rest between her shoulder blades, startled, but he can smell her coffee-breath and feel her eyelashes wet against his neck. He turns his head slightly, so that his lips brush her bent head, disturb her soft hair.  
  
“It's yours to do with what you wish,” he says. “But don't keep it if it will harm you.”  
  
Laughter bubbles out of her: harsh, choking giggles intermingled with tears.  
  
“I love it. It's gorgeous. She must have looked like a queen.”  
  
Chin-length hair streaming and clinging by turns, bright gold beneath the glint of the sun on the water. Skin so white as to seem blue, stark against the depths below. Not gone quite long enough for bloating to set in; gone _just_ long enough for the wide-open eyes to turn hollow. And there, at Agna's throat, the thin, silvery arc he'd at first, from a distance, mistaken for wire.  
  
Sherlock shakes his head, extracts himself from Helle's arms as tactfully as he can.  
  
“Let them help you,” says John, gently. “We're leaving tomorrow, most likely, and I'd like to know we're not abandoning you to...” He sets a hand on her shoulder, doesn't finish.  
  
Helle covers John's hand with her own, deliberately poised once more.  
  
“You know what this is like,” she says. “I found your blog. I _know_.”  
  
John just nods, as if he can't argue with that. “It's already been said, but you _do_ need to look after yourself.”  
  
“Maybe,” Helle says, gingerly accepting John's hug. “Goodbye.”  
  
Sherlock takes his turn to nod. She's looking straight at him, eyes piercing.  
  
Outside, night has fallen. It's chillier than previous evenings have been, Sherlock can't help but notice, and John's shivering slightly in spite of the fact he's got a jumper on over his short-sleeved shirt. Sherlock wants to offer his jacket, but then John will fuss at _him_ , and Sherlock will find himself more upset than he already is for no good reason. Better that they stay on equal footing, shivering inside their layers, too numb to re-state the obvious.  
  
“You're right,” John says at length. “She might not be long for this world.”  
  
“Can you accept that?” Sherlock asks, glancing at him sidelong.  
  
“If it's what she wants,” John replies, “I'm no one to argue with her.”  
  
“Then what you were saying about...what I said, about it being...”  
  
“It's not good because you're taking the choice out of her hands. Talking about it behind her back. At least let it be _her_ choice, Sherlock. Let her be the one to bring it up.”  
  
“She didn't...well, all right. In the end, perhaps, she did.”  
  
They walk in silence for a while. John follows Sherlock's deviation from their earlier path without question, and he doesn't express the slightest surprise when they end up skirting the harbor. By then, Sherlock's hand is in his and it seems easy, suddenly, so very _simple_ , and Sherlock is instantly furious at himself for having taken his time. For having been stubborn.  
  
For having been _scared_.  
  
“You wouldn't have lost me, you know,” John says, squeezing Sherlock's hand. “Even if I hadn't felt the same way, I wouldn't have walked out of your life forever.”  
  
“That would almost have been worse,” Sherlock confesses.  
  
“Worse than if I'd died? Worse than if _you'd_ died? The problem would be if one of us was ever to be left without the other, really, wouldn't it?”  
  
_I'd never be without you_ , thinks Sherlock, fiercely. _I understand her. I would do the same._  
  
“Yes,” he agrees, pausing to watch a shore-bird dive into the water.  
  
“So, what I said about you going where I can't follow?” John continues. “Don't. Don't you _dare_. Because then I'd _have_ to try anyway, and God knows what I'd find there.”  
  
What Sherlock will remember about this kiss in particular is not so much the atmosphere, not so much the sense of place, but the sense that he's _home_ , in spite of the fact that Baker Street is eight hundred eighty-nine and a quarter miles away.

The sense that, although they may not have managed to save Helle, they've somehow managed to save each other.  
  
“You are maddening,” John huffs between kisses. “The most _impossible_ —”  
  
“If you ever leave me,” Sherlock interrupts, “I will hunt you to the ends of the earth, I will...” _Follow you even if there's nothing left for us there, save for the knowledge that I was your last thought, and you were mine._  
  
“If I ever leave you,” John laughs, “it won't be by choice. I'll be quite happily hunted.”  
  
And Sherlock says the words, both foreign and familiar, low and fierce in John's ear.

  
  
  
  
  
**_jag älskar dig_**  
  
Their walk back to the hotel is silent, albeit comfortable.

John isn’t sure he’s ever seen Sherlock so quiet, and while it would normally give John cause for alarm (lack of Sherlock chatter from the kitchen tends to precede an explosion of some sort), he appreciates it now. They take their time despite the late hour, and by the time Sherlock unlocks the door to their room it’s nearly midnight and John can’t help but yawn as he shrugs off his jacket.  
  
“To bed, then?” asks Sherlock, toeing off his shoes.  
  
John nods. “I think so,” he says. “I’m done in. That was…exhausting. Not the walk, but...”  
  
Sherlock nods. “I know what you mean.” He unbuttons his shirt as he goes to brush his teeth.  
  
John forgoes washing up and simply sheds his clothes and climbs into bed, pulling the blankets up around himself and rolling on his side. He stares at the bathroom door, open just enough that he can see Sherlock’s foot and his elbow as he moves round in front of the sink. The sounds of him washing up fill John with an odd sense of comfort, the knowledge that he could close his eyes and listen, and still be certain of Sherlock.  
  
Then he thinks of Helle. and the comfort dissipates, replaced by silent nights, a dark and empty bathroom, and a bare space in the bed beside her. Inside her. She will never fill it, never even try. John shivers and pulls the blankets tighter around himself.  
  
“Sherlock,” he calls out. “Come to bed.”  
  
Sherlock snaps off the bathroom light and the overhead, and feels his way across the darkened room. He stubs his toe against the leg of the desk and curses, and John can’t help but smile.  
  
“Not funny,” says Sherlock, sliding in and curling his long limbs around John. “Just because you’ve got no feet—”  
  
“My feet are a perfectly respectable size, thanks—”  
  
“Your legs just _end_ ,” insists Sherlock. He kisses John behind the ear. John hadn’t imagined that Sherlock would be the demonstrative type when it came to affection, but he’s happy to have been wrong. He turns his head and kisses Sherlock’s mouth, soft and quick.  
  
“Don’t think I’m really in the mood, tonight,” he says with a wince. “It’s hard to want to, when you’ve just…”  
  
Sherlock pulls him closer. “When you’ve just had a distressing conversation with a woman who will not likely last the rest of the month,” he says.  
  
John sighs. “Yes,” he says. “That.”  
  
“Understood,” says Sherlock. He noses at the hair above John’s ear. “I think that I—and your apparent reputation as a sex god—can endure one night free of passion.”  
  
“When you say it like that, it sounds like we’re in one of Harry’s old bodice-rippers.” John makes a face. “I’m fairly certain those made her gay.”  
  
“Ah, and here I thought it was because she enjoys sex with other women. How silly of me.”  
  
John wants to laugh, but he can’t quite manage it.  
  
“I wish there were something we could do for Helle,” he says instead.  
  
“There isn’t,” says Sherlock. “And you shouldn’t dwell on it. You can’t save everyone, John. Especially those who have no desire to be saved.”  
  
“I know that,” says John, a little irritably. “Doesn’t mean I can’t _want_ to.”  
  
Sherlock sighs. “Except that it upsets you, which makes you useless to me.” He slides a hand over John’s heart, flattens his palm against it. “At the same time, I am glad of it, because it reminds me that you are indeed the heart of the matter of _us_.”  
  
John doesn’t know what to say to that. He thinks about what Sherlock had said by the waterfront, those three short words, spoken as all breath and urgency, and reaches up to put his hand over Sherlock’s. He can feel his own heart beating. For a moment neither of them speaks.  
  
“I’ve changed our flights,” says Sherlock, when the silence inevitably becomes too dull and unacceptable to him. “Tomorrow will be our last day here. I want to talk to that woman about her sister.”  
  
“All right.” John is disappointed, but they do have to go home eventually and he knows better than to come between Sherlock and the lure of a potential mystery. He yawns again, feels exhaustion creeping up on him. “Should get some sleep, then.”  
  
“ _Mmm_.” Sherlock kisses his shoulder. “Good night, John.”  
  
“’Night.” And then, in a softer voice, “I do too, you know.”  
  
He can feel Sherlock’s smile spread against his skin.  
  
“I know.”  
  
In the morning they start packing, which for John is a very simple task of tossing a handful of jumpers and pants into his rucksack. For Sherlock it is a nightmare of majestic proportions. John isn’t certain how Sherlock had got everything he’s brought into one bag to begin with, but he’s quite amused by Sherlock’s attempts at defying the laws of physics in trying to get it all back in again.  
  
“What I don’t understand,” says John around his toothbrush, “is how someone who claims he doesn’t give a toss what people think of him and who is a complete _idiot_ when it comes to social behaviour has so many bloody _clothes_.”  
  
Sherlock glared at him, hair sticking out in all directions. “I _am_ allowed a certain degree of vanity, you know,” he says. “I don’t see _you_ complaining about how I look or dress.”  
  
John smirks. “I’m not complaining,” he says. “I just think it’s hilarious that you’re a complete _woman_ about it.”  
  
“Sexism, John, is medieval and unattractive. I'll be sure to tell Mrs. Hudson what you said.” Sherlock sniffs and sits on his suitcase again, but he bounces right off. “Sod this. Can I put some of my things in with yours?”  
  
John waves a hand at his rucksack. “Have at it,” he says, going into the bath to spit. When he returns Sherlock is carelessly stuffing a pile of folded shirts into John’s bag. “Oi, mind you don’t wreck my things, will you?”  
  
Sherlock laughs. “I’ll treat your twenty-year-old jumble sale jumpers with the utmost respect, I promise,” he says, giving the shirts another violent shove. “There. That’s better.”  
  
John shoos him away from the bag and starts to zip it up when he looks inside. He pauses. One of Sherlock’s expensive, bespoke shirts is tangled up with the sleeve of his striped pyjama top. The contrast between them is stark and quite appropriate—one is threadbare and worn, the other handsome and sharp. Two articles of clothing that have no right to be in the same place together, and yet there they are.  
  
John stares into the bag and sees forever.  
  
“Right,” he says. He turns and sees Sherlock packing his laptop. “Sherlock?”  
  
“Yes?” Sherlock turns and John’s already there, pressing him against the desk, standing on his toes and kissing him fiercely. “John?”  
  
“I don’t want normal,” says John, looking Sherlock in the eye. “In case you were wondering. Normal’s never worked for me, and I’ve got bored with it anyway.”  
  
Sherlock looks bewildered. “That’s…good?” He puts his hands on John’s shoulders, pulls back a little. “What’s this about?” he asks.  
  
John grips the front of Sherlock’s shirt and hauls him toward the bed.  
  
“This,” he says. “What we have, right now. I want this.” He gives Sherlock a little shove onto the mattress. “I _need_ this.”  
  
“All right,” says Sherlock. He’s gone a bit hoarse, face flushed, obviously flustered and possibly _aroused_ by John’s sudden need to boss and throw him round the room. “You have it. You know that. I told you yesterday—”  
  
“I want it for _good_ ,” says John. With one hand he pushes at Sherlock’s chest until Sherlock settles back on the bed and John can crawl over him. “You get it? This, what we have, what we are—for good. Rest of my life. I mean it, Sherlock. I’ll never leave you.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes are dark and enormous.  
  
“John—” He laughs, breathlessly. “If I'm not mistaken, that sounds like a _proposal_.”  
  
John sits back, straddling Sherlock’s hips.  
  
“So what if it is?” he says. “I don’t care if we never do anything about it, officially or whatever, I just want it clear, and if it’s not what you want—”  
  
“I do,” says Sherlock, sitting up and catching John’s face in his hands. “I told you. I want this, John.” He looks John in the eye. “ _Absolutely_.”  
  
“Oh, thank God.” John grins and kisses him, lapping at his mouth. It’s sloppy and really very undignified but John doesn’t care; he’s too far gone to think about things like _finesse_. Which is why he suddenly shoves Sherlock aside and lunges for the night-stand, yanking open the drawer.  
  
Sherlock, in a heap of pillows and hair like untended shrubbery, peers at him quizzically.  
  
“What are you—wait, they’re not in there,” he says. “They’re in my bag.”  
  
“Of course they are,” groans John. “Which is all the way over there.” John gets off the bed and makes his way awkwardly across the room, his jeans so tight across the crotch he can scarcely breathe without seeing stars. “I’m afraid to open this thing,” he says, frowning at Sherlock’s bag, which looks ready to explode.  
  
“You will, though,” says Sherlock, in a tone of voice that makes John glance over as his breath leaves him entirely. Sherlock’s shed his clothes— _How did he do that in the thirty seconds it took me to get over here?_ thinks John—and has spread himself across the bed, legs parted, smiling at John. “Won’t you.”  
  
John yanks open the bag and breaks the zipper in the process.  
  
“I’ll buy you another one,” he says, by way of apology. “Where _are_ they?”  
  
Sherlock takes himself in hand with a lazy stroke.  “The slippers. They’re in one of the slippers.”  
  
“You’re joking.” John rummages through Sherlock’s things and extracts the gaudy pair of Moroccan slippers Sherlock sometimes likes to wear round the house. Tucked into the toe of one is a packet of condoms and a small tube of something called _glidmedel_ which John assumes (hopes) is lube. “You’re not joking. You hid your johnnies in a slipper. What _are_ you?”  
  
“Bored,” says Sherlock. “You're planning to come back at some point, yes?”  
  
“Right. Sorry.” John tosses the slippers back into the bag and returns to the bed, unbuttoning his jeans and pulling his jumper over his head. It lands on the floor, as do his jeans and pants, and he climbs back onto Sherlock. “I told you,” he says, running a hand down Sherlock’s chest, thumbing one nipple. “I want to know what it feels like.”  
  
Sherlock nods. “As do I,” he says. He takes the condoms from John, taps the packet against his bottom lip. “We don’t _need_ these, you know,” he says. “I’ve seen your medical file, of course, and you forced me to have tests done the last time I fell into the Thames.”  
  
“True,” says John, taking the condoms back. “But they keep things clean.” He makes a face. “Don’t make me play doctor and give a lecture when I’m about to fuck you. I’ll find you some pamphlets on the subject when we get home.”  
  
“All right, all right.” Sherlock grins. “Though, to be fair, I rather like the idea of being fucked by _Doctor_ Watson.”  
  
John shivers. “I don’t know what it says about me that I like that, too,” he says, leaning down for a thorough snog. He knots his fingers in Sherlock’s hair and tugs, just hard enough to direct Sherlock where he wants him. Sherlock rolls, pitching John onto his side and tangling their legs together, bodies connecting in _gorgeous_ friction. Somehow, John frees a hand and manages to find the little bottle of _glidmedel_ again, flip open the cap.  
  
“Here,” he says, a bit shakily, slicking his hand and wrapping it around Sherlock. With one stroke Sherlock groans, and when John’s fingers dip lower Sherlock bucks against them without shame. John watches him, watches the way Sherlock’s mouth falls open just slightly, tongue flicking against his bottom teeth, the way his eyes shutter, how his long, elegant fingers wind in the sheets as John works him open.  
  
“Surgeon’s hands,” Sherlock says, coherency quickly failing him. “Always liked—I like to watch them when you’re typing.” He bites his bottom lip. “ _Knew_ they’d feel marvellous like this...”  
  
John smiles, drops a kiss to Sherlock’s belly, licks the sweat from his own lips. “Tell me,” he says, shifting so he can rub himself against Sherlock’s thigh, leaving a messy smear. “Tell me when—”  
  
“Ages ago.” Sherlock's been reduced to hoarseness. “Now. Bloody _now_.”  
  
“Right.” John carefully withdraws his hand, wipes it on the sheets and fumbles for the condoms. Rolling one on is almost unbearable, and he has to pause for a moment before he applies more lube, lest he ruin everything. Sherlock’s already got his legs up, and when John moves between them, pushing at his thighs, he locks them tight round John’s hips.  
  
“Steady on,” says John, squirming. “Got to give me—I need a _bit_ of room—”  
  
“Sorry,” says Sherlock, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “Get _on_ with it, I need— _John_.”  
  
Sherlock is actually _whinging_ at him. John smirks, feeling a little bit triumphant, takes his cock in hand, and guides himself in.  
  
The push goes so slowly that _everything_ seems to slow down with it. The room goes still, and John can’t hear anything but his own heartbeat and Sherlock’s rough breathing. Sherlock is too tight, clenched and apprehensive.

“Relax,” John says, his voice gone to breath. He strokes a hand over Sherlock’s side, soothingly. “Sherlock, _relax_.”  
  
Asking Sherlock to relax is tantamount to asking the skull to chip in for rent, but miraculously Sherlock obeys, his shaking body gradually loosening up, and John’s finally able to sink in. It’s agonizingly divine, almost to the point of pain, and halfway there he has to stop and dig his nails into his own leg to keep from coming on the spot. John lets out a ragged curse and bows his head, trying to remember how to breathe.  
  
Sherlock twitches, an unsteady hand coming up to run fingers through John's hair. “John?”  
  
“Sorry.” John nearly laughs. “I’m not—not usually like this, but I—”  
  
Sherlock scratches him behind one ear. “This is different,” he says, throaty and low. “This is us.”  
  
John takes a deep breath and shifts his body, inching deeper. His mouth hangs open in a silent moan—he’s not sure he could breathe if it weren’t.  
  
“Fuck.” John grips Sherlock’s hips and sighs. “Oh, fuck me.”  
  
“No,” says Sherlock, “fuck _me_.”  
  
“Shut up.” John pinches him. “Just—shut up. Lie back and think of Sweden.”  
  
He can feel Sherlock laughing silently, the slight movement of his body around him. He pinches him again and gives a little nudge, and just like that he’s inside completely. John opens his eyes and looks at Sherlock with unabashed wonder.  
  
“I knew it,” he says, leaning in and whispering the words into Sherlock’s mouth. “Knew it would be like this.”  
  
Sherlock licks John’s bottom lip and follows it with a kiss. “Like what?”  
  
“Like _everything_.”  
  
John has no idea what he means by that but Sherlock seems to understand. He pulls John closer with his legs and stretches back against the pillows. John braces himself, hands on either side of Sherlock’s head and carefully begins to move. The first thrust draws groans out of both of them.  
  
“Christ.” John’s vision is a bit fuzzy round the edges, but he wants to watch Sherlock’s face. The man makes the most incredible expressions when he’s _not_ having sex, so John can only imagine what he’ll look like now. “This—not going to last long—”  
  
“You’re forgiven,” says Sherlock. “Move, _please_.”  
  
John manages to establish something of a rhythm, though it’s a bit uneven, full of jagged breathing and mumbled curses. They manage to kiss a few times, clumsily, all lips and teeth and tongue. It’s rough and graceless, and at any moment it’ll be over, but John doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he’s _inside_ Sherlock, and Sherlock’s making delicious sounds beneath him, and they’ve _both_ said it now and the world didn’t end.

So what if the sex is a bit clumsy, what when he has _that_?  Besides, they’ve got years to perfect their technique.  
  
_We_ will _have years_ , John thinks, just as his focus begins to splinter. _And I will make bloody sure we see every last one of them._  
  
John comes before Sherlock does, and he should feel guilty, but he’s groaning, overwhelmed, bucking sharply into Sherlock as his body convulses. He ducks his head against Sherlock’s shoulder, mouthing at it, scraping his teeth over smooth skin. He’s vaguely aware of Sherlock murmuring into his ear, Sherlock's warm hands splayed across his back. Everything goes sideways for a moment.  
  
Slowly, things right themselves again, and John can feel his shoulder complaining loudly about all the movement. His arms threaten to give out so he sits back, still inside Sherlock, chest heaving with the effort of breathing. Sherlock’s watching him with a mixture of fondness and wild impatience. John gives him a dozy smile.  
  
“Your turn,” says John. Without moving he reaches for Sherlock and strokes him roughly, quickly, bends and fastens his mouth to Sherlock’s throat, the fingers of his free hand finding a nipple.  
  
Sherlock tenses and gasps, a pleased sound of relief. “Oh, just like that,” he says. “John, you’re—”  
  
Whatever he intends to say, John never finds out. Sherlock comes, sobbing into John’s hair, his long arms wrapped around him. John shifts and fits their mouths together, tongue sliding slick against Sherlock’s, swallowing every sound that catches in Sherlock’s throat. He keeps his hand moving until it gets to be too much, and Sherlock knocks it away with a whimper.  
  
They’re quiet for a long moment, Sherlock gasping for breath. John’s bent over awkwardly and his legs are starting to go numb, but he can’t move. Won’t move. He’s too sore, too winded, and too content like this. It’s sweaty and sticky, and it's also perfect.  
  
“If it's like this now,” says Sherlock, sounding a bit dazed and unsteady, “imagine how it will be when we learn to do it _better_.”  
  
John laughs. He turns his head and presses a kiss to the staccato beat of Sherlock’s heart.  
  
_Now_ , he thinks, _we can go home._

  

 

 

 

✈

  
  
  
The first thing John notices when they walk in the flat is the smell.

“Oh _Christ_ ,” he says, dropping his bag and slapping his hands over his nose. “Something’s gone off.”  
  
Sherlock, who is used to dodgy smells, pushes past him and rushes into the kitchen.

“The refrigerator has died,” he calls out. “The food’s all spoilt, and—damn it, the flamingo in the freezer’s thawed.”  
  
John winces and heads for the windows, throwing them open. “Is that what that was—hang on, how the hell did you fit a _flamingo_ in our freezer?”  
  
“Very carefully,” says Sherlock, returning to the sitting room and looking despondent. “I wonder why Mrs. Hudson didn’t notice the smell?”  
  
“Because she’s gone on holiday,” says John. He’s found a note sticking out of the skull’s mouth. “Says we inspired her to go off on her own adventure. Oh, and she _did_ notice the smell, which had nothing to do at all with her decision to leave, she wants us to know, but she wishes us the best of luck in cleaning up whatever we’ve done to her house.”  
  
John groans and points at Sherlock. “ _You_ are dealing with the bloody flamingo,” he says.  
  
Sherlock isn’t listening. He’s perched on the arm of the sofa, laptop already out and balanced on his knees. John sighs and kicks at Sherlock’s bag.  
  
“Don’t leave this here,” he says. “Liable to trip over it.”  
  
“Just tea, thanks,” says Sherlock, fingers flying over the keyboard. “John, the woman with the murdered sister. They were _twins_ , there’s an inheritance at stake—this may prove interesting.”  
  
John frowns. “Sherlock—”  
  
“ _Mm_.” Sherlock makes a face. “It had _better_ be interesting if she expects us to slog all the way out to _Surrey_.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, John throws up his hands. “Right, right. I know how this goes.” He shrugs off his jacket and flings it over the back of an armchair and rolls up his sleeves. He hopes to God there are bin-bags and gloves somewhere in the kitchen.  
  
As he passes by Sherlock, he’s caught round the middle by Sherlock's slender arm and a hand that fits over his hip. Sherlock draws him close and presses a wet kiss to the side of his throat. “I’ll help, just need to look up a quick map of Hindshead and check Burke’s Peerage—I’ve never even heard of the Roylotts. Won’t be a moment...”  He releases John, who steps back and blinks in wonder. 

Everything has changed, and yet _nothing's_ different. Not really.  
  
John thinks he wouldn’t have it any other way.  
  
(Except for the bloody flamingo, of course.)

 


End file.
